Your Personal Town Crier — Florida Edition
A companion to “Who Told the Town Crier What to Say?”
This guide does not endorse any media outlet or political position. It explains who owns Florida’s news, where local coverage has disappeared, and where citizens can find reliable Florida-specific information.
| At a Glance — Florida’s Media Landscape | |
| 5+ | Florida counties with no local newspaper as of 2025 |
| 76% | Circulation drop at the Miami Herald since 2018 |
| 3 corporations | Gannett, McClatchy, and Tribune Publishing own most of Florida’s major daily newspapers |
| 1 independent | The Tampa Bay Times — owned by the nonprofit Poynter Institute — is the rare exception |
| SB 7072 | Florida passed a social media regulation law in 2021; the Supreme Court sent it back to lower courts in 2024 |
| The gap | When local news disappears, nobody covers your county commission. The algorithm fills the vacuum. |
The Local News Desert — Florida’s Civic Emergency
The national guide explained the mechanism: your personal town crier — the algorithm — fills whatever space the media environment leaves open. In Florida, that space is growing fast.
As of 2025, at least five Florida counties have no local newspaper at all. Dozens more have seen their papers shrink to skeleton operations — fewer reporters, fewer editions, less coverage of the county commission meeting where your tax rate was set, the school board vote that changed curriculum, the zoning decision that approved the warehouse next to your neighborhood.
The Miami Herald — once one of the most influential papers in the American Southeast — has seen its circulation fall roughly 76% since 2018. It no longer publishes a Saturday print edition. Counties like Suwannee and Lafayette, already rural and underserved, now have essentially no professional local news coverage at all.
When there’s no reporter in the room, the public meeting still happens. You just don’t find out what was decided until it affects you.
This matters for every other Informed Citizen guide in this series. The guides on Amendment 3, data centers, homeowners insurance, local government, and your tax bill all assume you can find reliable local coverage to verify the specifics for your county. In some Florida communities, that assumption is no longer safe.
Who Owns Florida’s News
Most people assume their local newspaper is locally owned. In Florida, that is rarely true. Three national corporations own the majority of the state’s major daily newspapers, and most Florida TV stations are owned by national broadcast groups headquartered outside the state.
Ownership doesn’t determine truth — but it does determine incentives. A hedge fund that bought a newspaper chain to cut costs and maximize short-term return has different incentives than a nonprofit institution whose mission is journalism. Citizens who know who owns their news outlet are better positioned to read it critically.
| Owner | Florida Properties | Note |
| Gannett | Florida Times-Union, Tallahassee Democrat, Palm Beach Post, Gainesville Sun, Daytona Beach News-Journal, Naples Daily News, Pensacola News Journal, and others | Largest newspaper chain in the U.S.; publicly traded |
| McClatchy | Miami Herald, El Nuevo Herald, Bradenton Herald | Miami Herald circulation down 76% since 2018 |
| Tribune Publishing | Orlando Sentinel, South Florida Sun-Sentinel | Purchased by hedge fund Alden Global Capital in 2021 |
| Poynter Institute | Tampa Bay Times | Nonprofit ownership — the exception in Florida |
| Sinclair Broadcast Group | Multiple FL TV stations including WOGX (Gainesville), WEAR (Pensacola) | Eliminated some local FL news departments; nationally owned |
| Cox Media Group | WFTV Orlando, WFXT (Fox 35) | Atlanta-based; owns major Florida TV stations |
One notable exception: the Tampa Bay Times is owned by the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, a nonprofit journalism school. Its ownership structure removes the profit motive from editorial decisions — which is why it has continued to invest in investigative reporting when most Florida papers have cut staff.
Florida’s Unique Media Landscape
Florida’s population is unlike any other state, and its media landscape reflects that. Three features stand out for citizens trying to navigate it:
- Spanish-language media. Florida has the second-largest Spanish-language newspaper in the United States. El Nuevo Herald, based in Miami, serves a large Cuban-American and broader Latino readership with its own editorial perspective and coverage priorities. El Sentinel covers Orlando and Fort Lauderdale. Spanish-language media in Florida does not always cover the same stories the same way as English-language outlets — both are worth reading on major state issues.
- Retiree and transplant media consumption. A significant share of Florida’s population arrived from other states and gets much of its news from those states’ outlets. A retiree from Ohio may be reading Cleveland.com for national news and relying on a Facebook group for local Florida information. The algorithm serves them content calibrated to their Ohio identity, not their Florida community.
- The Tallahassee press corps. Florida has a substantial Tallahassee press corps — journalists stationed at the Capitol who cover the Legislature and state agencies. The News Service of Florida is the wire service most Florida papers subscribe to for state government coverage. Florida Phoenix provides nonprofit coverage of state politics. These are the outlets most likely to read the actual bill text so you don’t have to.
What Florida Tried to Do About It — SB 7072
In 2021, Florida passed SB 7072 — one of the first state laws in the country specifically targeting social media platform algorithms. The law prohibited platforms from removing or demoting political candidates, required platforms to explain content moderation decisions, and gave users the ability to opt out of algorithmic curation.
The law was immediately challenged in court. In July 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court sent the case back to lower courts without a final ruling on constitutionality, finding the record was not fully developed. As of mid-2026, the legal status of the law remains unresolved.
Whether or not SB 7072 is ultimately upheld, it reflects a real policy question Florida has put on the table: should state government have the authority to regulate how private platforms curate the information citizens see? Reasonable people disagree. What is clear is that Florida has been more active than most states in attempting to address the personal town crier question through legislation.
Where to Find Reliable Florida-Specific News
The table below is not an endorsement of any outlet — it is a starting-point map of where professional Florida journalism still exists as of 2026. For any specific issue, cross-reference multiple sources and go to primary documents when possible.
| Source | What It Covers | Who Runs It |
| News Service of Florida newsserviceflorida.com | State government, legislature, courts — the Tallahassee wire service most Florida papers subscribe to | Subscriber-funded wire service |
| Florida Phoenix floridaphoenix.com | State politics and policy, Tallahassee-based | Nonprofit, foundation-funded |
| Tampa Bay Times tampabay.com | Statewide + Tampa Bay region; Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative work | Nonprofit (Poynter Institute) |
| WLRN / Stet News wlrn.org / stetnews.org | South Florida; also partners with other FL public media | Public radio / nonprofit |
| El Nuevo Herald elnuevoherald.com | Spanish-language; Florida’s largest, 2nd-largest in U.S. | McClatchy |
| FlaglerLive.com | Flagler County specific — hyperlocal government coverage | Independent |
| Your Clerk of Court | Meeting minutes, budgets, public records — the primary source for local government | County government (public) |
For your specific county: search for your county name + “Clerk of Court” to find public records, meeting minutes, and budget documents. Search your county name + “news” to find any remaining hyperlocal outlets. If nothing comes up, your county may be in a news desert — which means the primary source documents are your best and only reliable option.
Questions Florida Citizens Should Ask
- Who owns the outlet I’m reading — and where is that company headquartered?
- Does my county still have a local reporter covering county commission and school board meetings?
- If I want to know what happened at a local government meeting, where can I find the actual minutes or recording?
- Am I getting Florida-specific news, or national news about Florida filtered through an algorithm that doesn’t know where I live?
- For issues affecting my community specifically — data centers, insurance rates, school budgets — have I read the primary document, or only the coverage of it?
Read This With the National Guide
This companion focuses on Florida-specific conditions. The national guide — “Who Told the Town Crier What to Say?” — explains the full historical arc from medieval town criers to today’s algorithm, how your personal town crier works, and how to see your own information environment more clearly. The two guides are designed to be read together.
Both guides carry the same commitment: explain the mechanism, name the incentives, and let citizens decide what to do with the information.