One of the most viral stories on the internet in the past 24 hours is the news that South Miami City Commission passed a resolution calling for the division of Florida into two separate states. It's not something that's going to happen, but, hey, it's fun to click on.
The story behind the story: the resolution was passed two weeks ago, and every single outlet that should be covering the city commission missed it.
South Miami Vice Mayor Walter Harris proposed the resolution and it passed with a 3-2 vote on October 7. The plan would call for the state's 24 most southern counties, starting with Brevard, Orange, Polk, Hillsborough and Pinellas counties to the North, to break away and become their own state.
Harris cited environmental concerns and claims that Tallahassee is unresponsive to the threat of climate change and proper environmental stewardship of the Everglades.
Will the resolution actually result in the 51st state? Unlikely. A real secession plan would need to be voted on by every voter in the state and then would need congressional approval.
Is it interesting click-bait? Certainly.
So a funny thing happened. Nearly two weeks went by and no one wrote about it.
Harris, meanwhile, sent out copies of the resolution to the affected county governments, and that's when Naples Daily News' Maryann Batlle published what seems to be the first story about the resolution on the Political Fix Florida blog on Monday.
Meaning she scooped the entire Miami media.
None of the TV stations wrote about the resolution.
WLRN didn't report on it.
We totally missed it.
Naturally, though, this is most embarrassing for the Miami Herald, who has the traditional duty of, you know, actually keeping up with the week-to-week goings-on of local city governments.
The last time the Herald actually wrote about South Miami government: September 23. Before that: September 12.
In any event, it's the most viral story to come out of South Miami in years, and the entire Miami media is playing catch up to cover it.
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