Florida Bill Will Prevent Government Money Going to Media ‘Bias Monitors’

A law preventing government collusion with media gatekeepers will go to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ desk.

The Florida legislature approved its 2025-2026 budget on Tuesday, which included a provision prohibiting state agencies from using funds “to contract with an advertising agency or other contractor who acts as or uses the services of media reliability and bias monitors.”

The law stated that a “media bias monitor” is any contractor “whose primary or principal function is to rate or rank news and information services for the factual accuracy of their content.”

The bill stipulates that the law’s application “does not include any contractor that rates media outlets for audience size, viewership, and demographic information; or that monitors media outlets for the purpose of compiling press or video clippings or aggregating news sources for the purpose of public relations and public awareness.”

If signed into law, this provision would go into effect immediately but would be set to expire in 2026 at the end of the budget cycle.

It is doubling down on a move by the DeSantis administration last year to ensure that government money isn’t going to biased organizations looking to censor Americans.

Florida’s then Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis, who now serves in the Florida legislature, announced in 2024 according to the Federalist that the governor’s office would not partner with news rating agencies that “are often rooted in political disagreements, subjective biases, and viewpoint discrimination, rather than factual inaccuracies, thereby amounting to censorship and blacklisting.”

Federal agencies have been accused of working with various media gatekeeping companies to shut down dissent. For instance, The Daily Signal reported in March that the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, worked with the Global Engagement Center to “counter-propaganda” and “disinformation and COVID-19 related products.”

“The Global Engagement Center along with the National Endowment for Democracy—a nonprofit almost entirely funded by the State Department—reportedly gave a combined $330,000 to the British-based nonprofit Global Disinformation Index,” The Daily Signal reported in 2023. “That organization attacks center-right news outlets, including The Daily Signal, the Washington Examiner, and the New York Post, along with Real Clear Politics (which published commentary from both the Right and Left) and a libertarian magazine, Reason.”

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