The primary impetus for the legislation, he said, was to target the Sullivan standard. The sponsor of the companion bill in the Senate, Jason Brodeur, did not respond to a request for comment.
A wide range of voices have chimed in. On March 23, Representative Cory Mills, a freshman Republican from Florida, sent a letter to the leaders of both houses of Florida’s Legislature calling the proposals “unpatriotic” and warning that the bills would “stifle all media voices — whether liberal, conservative or neutral — that your constituents have come to trust and rely on.”
William P. Barr, the former attorney general under President Trump, wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal last weekend attacking attempts to curtail press freedoms. “There are precious few conservative news outlets as it is,” he wrote, without making specific reference to the Florida legislation. “Why make them more vulnerable to the multitude of left-wing plaintiffs’ lawyers?”
Last month, James Schwartzel, president of Sun Broadcasting, which owns the Fox affiliate where Mr. Radel’s show airs, sent an email to eight members of the Florida House, Senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, and Mr. DeSantis’s communications director, calling for the officials to “KILL” the House version of the bill.
“The bill creates too much liability for our business to continue. We will change our conservative programming, and announcers will quit,” Mr. Schwartzel wrote.
On Saturday, The Gateway Pundit, a far right news site, published an editorial opposing the House bill, stating that if it “is passed, there is no doubt that conservative media outlets will suffer.” Even the founder of Florida’s Voice, one of Mr. DeSantis’s most reliably friendly outlets, has come out against the legislation, tweeting last month that it would allow the left to “weaponize this law against their enemies.”
National media outlets have not spoken out publicly.
Newsmax, a right-wing network, did not respond to a request for comment, nor did Salem Media Group, which produces conservative radio shows and podcasts.
