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At the same time one of Florida's most visible television reporters brought the
news to viewers around the state, he earned hundreds of thousands of dollars on
the side from the government agencies he covered.
Mike Vasilinda, a 30-year veteran of the Tallahassee press corps, does public
relations work and provides film editing services to more than a dozen state
agencies.
His Tallahassee company, Mike Vasilinda Productions Inc., has earned more than
$100,000 over the past four years through contracts with Gov. Jeb Bush's office,
the Secretary of State, the Department of Education and other government entities
that are routinely part of Vasilinda's stories.
Vasilinda also was paid to work on campaign ads for at least one politician
and to create a promotional movie for Leon County. One of his biggest state
contracts was a 1996 deal that paid nearly $900,000 to air the weekly drawing
for the Florida Lottery.
Meanwhile, the freelance reporter's stories continued to air on CNN and most
Florida NBC stations, including WFLA-Channel 8 in Tampa.
On Friday, Vasilinda told the Herald-Tribune that his business dealings with
state government don't influence his reporting.
"I have processes in place to make sure the products we put out for our
news clients are free from bias from any source," Vasilinda said. "We
absolutely keep arm's length between the two divisions of our company."
But Bob Steele, a journalism ethics professor at the Poynter Institute in St.
Petersburg, said Vasilinda's state government work "certainly raises some
red flags."
"Journalists should be guided by a principle of independence, and their
primary loyalty should be to the public," Steele said. "When journalists
have loyalties to a government office or government agencies, those competing
loyalties can undermine journalistic independence."
Vasilinda's stories reach millions of viewers because he sells them through
Capitol News Service, the television wire service he founded and runs in Tallahassee.
NBC and other stations subscribe to Capitol News Service and then can download
and air any segments done by Vasilinda or the reporters who work for him.
Steele said Vasilinda's government contracts are the latest blow to media credibility
following the revelation earlier this year that three journalists were accepting
government contracts to promote certain programs.
In January, USA Today revealed that President George W. Bush's administration
had paid conservative columnist Armstrong Williams $240,000 to promote No Child
Left Behind, the president's education reform law.
After the Williams flap went public, two more conservative columnists were
exposed for accepting money to promote Bush's beliefs on marriage.
Vasilinda said his situation is nothing like Williams' because he has not personally
promoted any government programs or appeared in any of the videos his business
produced.
In fact, Vasilinda has a reputation for being among the most aggressive reporters
covering government in Tallahassee.
"No one has ever suggested that our coverage, in any way, is soft on anybody,"
Vasilinda said. "The proof is in the pudding."
Steele said that argument doesn't work because being unbiased is only partly
about what gets on the air.
"We don't know everything he passed up, questions he didn't ask, issues
he didn't explore," Steele said.
Many of the agencies that have contracted with Vasilinda were unable to provide
details of the contracts late Friday.
In January, a Herald-Tribune reporter left repeated messages with Gov. Bush
spokeswoman Alia Faraj requesting information about whether any journalists
have received money from state agencies.
Faraj, who worked for Vasilinda at Capitol News Service before she was hired
by the Bush administration, never responded. Faraj also did not return calls
Friday seeking comment for this story.
State officials from several agencies said Vasilinda Productions has created
promotional videos, filmed public service announcements featuring prominent
government officials and made copies of videos and compact disks for agencies.
Several years ago, Vasilinda Productions produced a back-to-school video featuring
then-Education Commissioner Charlie Crist who went on to become Attorney General
and is now considered a contender for governor in 2006.
The fact that Vasilinda works for government agencies is widely known among
reporters and government officials in Tallahassee.
At a press conference in front of other reporters in 1996, then-Sen. Jack Latvala,
a Republican from Palm Harbor, singled out Vasilinda for accepting the lottery
contract.
But viewers around the state have never been told of Vasilinda's broad financial
ties to state government.
In fact, several television executives at Florida's NBC affiliates -- stations
associated with but not owned by NBC -- said they were unaware of Vasilinda's
contracts and would not comment on them until they had more information.
CNN, which aired a Vasilinda story on Terri Schiavo on Thursday, did not return
phone calls seeking comment.
The only NBC-owned news station in Florida, WTBJ in Miami, said it will review
the situation with Vasilinda and won't run any stories he produces until they
have completed the review.
WFLA News Director Forrest Carr said he knew that Vasilinda had been hired
by the state but did not know how many contracts or how much money Vasilinda
had been paid.
Carr said Vasilinda's business is separate from his news reporting and does
not represent a conflict of interest that concerns WFLA. The station doesn't
plan to stop airing Vasilinda stories, Carr said.
"We have discussed this. He assures me he has safeguards in place,"
Carr said. "He would not allow himself to be in a position where he would
allow his journalism to be compromised."
Carr points out that most media companies have government contracts, but they
are carried out by people who aren't involved in news coverage. Because Vasilinda
runs a small business, he's unable to separate the business and news side of
his organization, Carr said.
The Tampa Tribune, which shares some content with WFLA and has cited Vasilinda
as a contributing reporter for at least one story, plans to review how Vasilinda
separates his contracting business from his news coverage, said Executive Editor
Janet Weaver.
"I want to make sure that any journalist that is contributing to our report
is not entangled with any sort of government influence," Weaver said.
Vasilinda told the Herald-Tribune on Friday that he is not involved in the
production or content for his government contracts. But he said he is involved
in business decisions for Vasilinda Productions as well as news decisions at
Capitol News Service.
Vasilinda said he would not allow the reporters who work for him to accept
state money from government agencies.
The Herald-Tribune's affiliated cable news station, SNN 6, has determined that
it ran at least one story produced by Vasilinda. The station will no longer
run any stories produced by Vasilinda, said SNN General Manager Lou Ferrara.
"The SNN staff has been alerted not to use that material because it looks
like a conflict of interest," Ferrara said. "How do you expect to
look 100 percent clean if you are being paid by the government you're supposed
to be covering?"