Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed the COVID-19 vaccine passport ban into Law in May Joe Raedle/Getty ImageEmails obtained from the Tampa Bay Times records search show how Fox News approached Florida Governor. Ron DeSantis.DeSantis was invited to the network 113 times, from November 2020 to February 2021.Fox News claims that it "works daily to secure interviews with top-tier speakers."Check out more stories from Insider's business page.Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis caused some controversy in May when Fox News was not allowed to participate in his rollout of a controversial bill on election administration.Although the network denied involvement, it turned out that the unusual arrangement was part a well-cultivated symbiosis.The Tampa Bay Times obtained more than 1,200 pages (PDF) of emails between Governor's Office and US's most conservative network. This revealed the unique relationship, which was published in an investigation on Friday.According to the Tampa Bay Times, DeSantis was interviewed 113 times between the week of November 2020 and February 2021. This amounts to about one per day.After receiving an exclusive from the governor about a 100-year old WWII veteran being vaccinated, a Fox News producer said that he believed he could host the show.Continue reading: 11 feuds, controversies that threaten to sink Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' ascent to a run for the White House in 2024According to the report, DeSantis' communications team provided a senior, a place and the talking points for the vaccination segment."This is a very common practice in television, and it is not exclusive to FOX News," a spokesperson for the network told Tampa Bay Times in a statement.A Fox spokesperson also stated that they "work to secure interviews every day with political headliners which is a fundamental journalism practice at all news organisations."Insider reached out to Fox News to make a comment. They referred us to their response to The Tampa Bay Times.Continue the storyAlthough exclusives are common in political coverage, whether a lawmaker gives a first glance at a new policy proposal, or makes themselves available to an outlet for a one-on-1 interview, the Tampa Bay Times discovered that the DeSantis charm offensive revealed wheel greasing.One of the emails stated that Fox producers viewed him as "the future of the party", a Fox producer.DeSantis is now in a position to live up the hype, with former President Donald Trump out. In a straw poll conducted at a conservative conference, he topped Trump and received one of the most enthusiastic receptions at CPAC from the MAGA audience.Where did Trump first discover DeSantis? According to the Tampa Bay Times, Fox News.A.J. said that whatever tenuous wall existed between Fox News, DeSantis and Fox News, it appears to have collapsed. "Where people from both sides sit in a digital space together pitching programming ideas, it seems like there was no such thing," A.J. Bauer, a University of Alabama communications professor, spoke to the news outlet. "That seems to have been new."Business Insider has the original article.
