Dramatic news reporting, if only it was true. Which it wasn't.

Fascinating. Local reporters doing the traditional reporting which national mainstream media no longer do. From Rebekah Jones’ firing is the COVID clickbait the media dreams of – but it’s all fake. The reporting is not even by a named reporter. Just Staff.

It appears that a data analyst at Florida's Department of Health has been fired for insubordination. After her dismissal, it became clear that there were pubic records not available at the time of her hiring documenting a troubled work history and a checkered legal past.

It appears that Ms. Jones tried to make hay from her own dismissal by inflating her role, her responsibilities, and the reason for her firing.

Dozens of media outlets, both in Florida and nationally, published the sensational story of Dr. Rebekah Jones, a state Department of Health employee who was fired by the administration of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a Trump ally, after – she says – she refused to manipulate data to support the governor’s plan to reopen the state.

But a deeper look at the underlying facts expose a less sensational, yet all-too-common narrative: a media feeding frenzy caused by a deep-seated desire to report on scandal and cover-ups, which Rebekah Jones’ claims delivered – if only they were true.

They are not.

The staff then takes apart each of her claims. Read the article for the detailed refutation and the associated links to original sources.

The staff of Tallahassee Reports, a tiny local online news outlet, scoops NPR, The Guardian, MSNBC, USA Today, The Hill, CBS, The Miami Herald, and Tampa Bay Times among others. All the big outlets simply did press release journalism. Presumably her attorney made a press release; it made a dramatic claim against the governor, and the mainstream media ran it without checking the easily checkable facts. So easy that they got scooped with an outfit of probably fewer than 40 employees.

This is an indictment of mainstream media clickbait journalism - all opinion, all press release, no editorial review, no quality control. Once esteemed brands are circling the credibility drain and they seem unable or certainly unwilling to break free from the flush.