The Palm Coast City Council today rejected a call by a former council candidate to cancel the city’s long-standing advertising contract with FlaglerLive in retaliation for a news article published soon after the shooting, and a subsequent opinion column that denounced activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination, but also many of his views.
A majority of council members cited the site’s vast readership, its advertising reach for the city and its ROI, or return on a relatively modest investment to reject the call to cancel–at least not before an update on the numbers.
“This was brought up by Councilman Danko, I don’t know if it was last year, the year before, I can’t recall,” Council member Theresa Pontieri said, referring to former Council member Ed Danko’s attempt to cancel the contract, “but we did look at numbers at one point. And you know, love it or hate it, the medium does reach a lot of people. So to the extent we are trying to reach all members of our community, and I think we are, I don’t know that we should not advertise based on not agreeing with a viewpoint.”
Council member Ty Miller and Pontieri cautioned against the pendulum swinging to the other side, “to the extent there are other people in our seats later on who have different viewpoints than us, if they decide to not advertise with something that we may read in the future, and now we’re not getting access to our government information that we think we should get access to because they don’t agree with our viewpoint. I think that is a bad policy decision.”
She said if the ROI wasn’t there, the funding would be pulled, though that would be based on ROI, not content.
Today’s 14-minute discussion at the council was a faint if hoarse echo of a cancel-culture spree sweeping the nation since the Kirk assassination as dissent from prevailing Kirk orthodoxies on the right have led to fired teachers and professors, suspended or cancelled contracts, and threatened government prosecutions or deportations. The difference is that the council went against the grain.
“I know we’re not censoring but we’re just withholding advertisement dollars, but in a sense, it’s the same thing,” Miller said. “My view is that when someone has a disagreement with you that’s so incompatible, that there’s no conversation to be had, then ignore them and move on.” The city, he said, is compelled to advertise its events and information. It does not imply an endorsement. “And then, where does that stop? Because it could be somebody else up here making that same decision about you at some point in the future.”
Andrew Werner, who ran in last year’s council election and lost to Ray Stevens and Mark Stancel (Stevens won the run-off against Stancel by two votes), wrote Council member Dave Sullivan on Sept. 16, asking him “to make a motion to discontinue the city’s advertising with FlaglerLive” over a news article in the immediate aftermath of the Kirk assassination (“Shock, Sadness, Anxiety: Flagler County Leaders Grapple with Charlie Kirk Assassination, and Worry About What’s Next.”)
The 2,300-word article, characteristically verbose for FlaglerLive, included interviews with 10 local elected officials, business leaders, both major parties’ local presidents, the sheriff, and others reflecting on the assassination. The article included a brief summary of Kirk’s often radical views–a radicalism he championed–and a few national reactions.
Werner in his email to Sullivan, inaccurately claimed the article was “connecting [Kirk’s] death to him being an antisemitic [sic], connected Charlie Kirk to an organization he has no affiliation with in order to make it look like there will be a violent reaction without evidence.” (The article cited Kirk’s support for the so-called Great Replacement Theory, which has its origins in anti-Semitism; Kirk himself has not been documented to make anti-Semitic statements, but has raised alarms about migrants replacing white Americans.)
Werner also took issue with the article quoting Janet Sullivan, chair of the Flagler County Democratic Party, saying, “based on some of the comments that people had after this, I’m a little worried about going to work today.” Werner, referring to Janet Sullivan as “a local political affiliate” (he never named her) called reporting on Janet Sullivan’s fears “divisive rhetoric,” and asked Dave Sullivan to cancel the contract. (Dave Sullivan is not related to Janet Sullivan.)
Dave Sullivan rebuffed him by email, citing the site’s reach. “If you only focus on one side of the political spectrum you have no chance of convincing people to understand what is going on in all the various City activities,” Sullivan wrote Werner. “I personally strongly disagree with most of the positions that FlaglerLive puts out on politics and National news. Maybe one of the other PC Council members might want to bring up this issue but in my opinion it will cause more division and harm that good.”
Sullivan today called the opinion column “projection,” “disgraceful,” and “a horrendous article to write the time.”
Werner turned up at today’s council meeting to renew his call, this time seemingly citing Friday’s column, by Editor Pierre Tristam, which had also aired in part on WNZF, again repeating the false claim that “he called [Kirk’s] faith anti semitic” and for writing “extreme and divisive rhetoric. I, you know, I don’t think there’s a place for our city to be connected with talk like this.”
He had Mayor Mike Norris’s support, but no support from any of the other council members. “I started reading the article, and I got probably 500 words into the blah, blah, blah, which is usually typical with Pierre’s writings,” Norris said with unusual accuracy. He characterized it as just blogging, not news, though he added, “I follow FlaglerLive because like I said, some of his stuff, some information is factual, but when it gets down to his opinion and what he feels, you know, his view of the world is, to me, it’s garbage.”
When Norris started questioning FlaglerLive’s nonprofit status (“where’s the profit going? Are you feeding your family with it?” he asked. “Where is the money going?”) City Attorney Marcus Duffy intervened: “Mr. Mayor, I would advise you to move on.”
Steve Robinson, a retired journalist who chairs FlaglerLive’s board of directors, had heard today’s discussion at the council. “Contrary to the characterization of Pierre’s column as ‘Extreme and divisive’ and, as one councilman stated, ‘Disgraceful,’” Robinson said, “the column stated an essential fact, that ‘Condemning the Kirk assassination without qualifications is essential, as is condemning any assassination.’ Moreover, Pierre’s reminding us of the venom Kirk directed at his innumerable targets is grounded in indisputable fact–grounded in Kirk’s own words, words that Pierre painstakingly included in detailed footnotes.”
Robinson added perspective from 1968, the year of the Tet Offensive, the Prague Spring, and the assassinations of Marin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. “I, for one, am old enough to remember the words Ted Kennedy spoke of his brother Robert, four days after his assassination,” Robinson said. “The country in that spring of 1968 appeared just as divided as we our now. But even in the throes of grief Kennedy was brave enough to state, ‘My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life.’ Pierre’s column was an apt reminder to apply that truth to the present.”
Leave a Reply