DeSantis Press Secretary Shares CNN Reporter Request for Comment as Evidence of ‘Media Malpractice’

An email request for comment from a CNN.com reporter to the office of Governor Ron DeSantis was made public Friday morning by the governor’s press secretary, who claimed it was evidence of “media malpractice.”

DeSantis’s refusal to permit the College Board’s new Advanced Placement African American studies course in schools is what is at issue here. As Law & Crime’s Elura Nanos explained:

The course is currently in development and being piloted in select U.S. high schools through 2024.  Per the College Board’s website, AP African-American studies “reaches into a variety of fields—literature, the arts and humanities, political science, geography, and science—to explore the vital contributions and experiences of African Americans. ” The course was developed by acclaimed scholars including Harvard’s Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham.

The course is expected to be run in 60 schools across the nation in 2022-23, then to hundreds more the following school year. By the 2024-25 school year, all schools can begin offering the course with the first AP exam expected in Spring 2025.

Florida, however, was not interested in the course as planned. DeSantis’s Department of Education sent a letter to the College Board on Jan. 19 rejecting the new AP course, saying “the content of this course is inexplicably contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value.”

DeSantis has defended his administration’s decision to block a course on African American studies from the state’s public schools. He said teaching Black history is required in Florida schools, but this specific Advanced Placement course amounted to “indoctrination.”

It is in this context that Bryan Griffin, who serves as Press Secretary for the Florida governor, shared a screen capture of a request from a CNN staffer named John Blake, who was seeking comment on DeSantis’s recent decision to, in the reporter’s words, “block the teaching of an high school Advance Placement course on African American history course in Florida.”

Griffin quote tweeted the request for comment with a note of condemnation that read, “See below for this morning’s activism from @CNN. This isn’t journalism–it’s media malpractice.” He then added, “Taking a critic’s dishonest position, legitimizing it with unnamed Experts™, & writing with a standard of ‘guilty unproven innocent’ does absolutely nothing to inform the public.” See the tweet below:

Griffin appears to be employing some sort of preemptive defense of what appears to be a critical column that features criticism from a historian. For his part, Blake now gets to include this public response in his piece and perhaps even feature the combative attack on the press requesting comment as evidence of whatever thesis he had in mind.

Griffin then shared a screenshot of his reply that read:

John,

Your inquiry is absurd and, of course, false. There will always be extreme critics, but it is the media’s choice whether to give them a platform and legitimize their extremism. If you choose to print such critique and amplify it as a perspective by which we are guilty until proven innocent, it will speak more to the moral bankruptcy and untruthfulness of your outlet than anything else.

If this is what CNN considers journalism, it deserves to fail.

Bryan Griffin Press Secretary

A request for comment is a journalistic standard, especially if one is reporting on something critical.

“Journalism is printing what someone else does not want published; everything else is public relations” is a relevant quote that has been attributed to many but is remarkably apt here. Responding in the manner that Griffin did only sort of proves the point that he criticized (the irony!) but almost certainly will also raise Griffin’s standing in the eyes of his boss.

Blake will likely get attacked by supporters of DeSantis who see media bias, and DeSantis will be able to boast about fighting back against a biased media out to get him.

And the CNN reporter will be able to use this attack as evidence of authoritarian bullying that may prove the point.

So…everyone wins?