Mike Vasilinda - Jeb's paid-for journalist

http://www.newscoast.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050326/NEWS/503260408/1060


TV reporter earned money from state


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.
-snip-
--------------------------------


yep, another member of the criminal bushgang outed.

Thanks for sharing it here, donsu.

The Tampa Tribune picked up the story, too:

Saturday, March 26

Freelance TV Reporter Does Business With State
By CHRIS DAVIS and MATTHEW DOIG Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Published: Mar 26, 2005

At the same time one of Florida's most visible television reporters brought the news to viewers across 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 News Channel 8 in Tampa.
http://tampatrib.com/floridametronews/MGB8VMGER6E.html

---

Mike Vasilinda, founder and president of and reporter for Capitol News Service:
http://www.flanews.com/news1.html

---

Mike Vasilinda, a 5 percent stakeholder in FNC (Florida's News Channel):

* Building a statewide local cable news network
* Using virtual set technology to customize news from a single newsroom for multiple markets
* Newly discovered value in a statewide fiber-optic video distribution network

A newscast provides the audience with facts and a window into the "real" world. But what if the newscast is actually a "virtual" event? What if a 24-hour regional news channel uses "virtual set" technology to extend its appeal to different audiences in different geographic locations?

That's the question raised by Florida's News Channel, one of the newest of the 24-hour regional news channels. Since its launch in September 1998, FNC has provided news on cable networks in several Florida markets from its headquarters in a former Tallahassee movie theater. That's a fitting location, since FNC borrows heavily from the magic of the silver screen--what you get on the tube at home is definitely not what you see in the studio.
>snip<

From Statewide to Local
Originally, FNC was envisioned as a statewide service, similar to CNN Headline News but covering only Florida. Mike Vasilinda, a statehouse correspondent serving the six NBC affiliates throughout the state, approached Brillante, who was then at the Florida Cable Telecommunications Association, and Pat Keating, general manager of Comcast. Vasilinda, Brillante and Keating asked the NBC affiliates to invest in the channel as a network that they would co-own. But just when it seemed the affiliates would buy in, NBC announced its partnership with Microsoft to launch MSNBC, and the Florida project suffered a major setback. Brillante persisted and found funding from, among others, Phipps Media Ventures, which used to own the market-dominant WCTV in Tallahassee. Brillante also sold minority partnerships to several cable multiple system operators to ensure carriage. Brillante and Tallahassee developer Jim Rudnick are majority partners, and Vasilinda owns a 5 percent stake. The network officially was launched in September 1998, and Brillante projected it would reach 3 million cable households by the end of 1999 (although a prediction of 2 million households by the end of 1998 did not materialize).
>more:
http://www.rtnda.org/resources/nonstopnews/floridanews.html

---

But hey, The good news is:
Vasilinda said his business dealings with state government don't influence his reporting. Whew! For a minute there, I was worried.

I remember contacting them about the lopsided time Jeb got. A lot of us here did. There was one in Jacksonville in particular, I think. I talked to a station manager there.

I can not even remember who the moderator of the debate was, but he was an anchor from a Miami station.

I am going to do a search at the WFLA website to see when they used him last. I remember this "back to school" video, I believe. I was still teaching then and not yet retired. This says his contracts with the state were widely among reporters and other officials...but they were not known by the public.

SNIP..."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...."