First, it was the Wall Street Journal with their story entitled: Homebuyers Are Heading to Florida During Covid, but Nearly as Many Are Moving Out. Then it was a myriad of news media lemmings like Marker that followed with stories entitled: Actually, Not a Ton of People Are Moving to Florida.
You might have noticed something if you pay attention to the national news media’s coverage of Florida these days. In addition to not being very good at what they’re tasked with doing, they are seemingly jealous of what we have here. Without former President Trump to kick around daily, these media types often home in Governor DeSantis. The combination of living in states far less desirable than ours, combined with political motivations, have led to stuck on stupid stories like the two I’ve referenced.
Here’s what’s behind all of this. The Demographic Estimating Conference is out with their net population changes for 2020 and the survey says Florida’s population grew by 1.38%. Now, if you’re wondering how we added nearly 300,000 people last year and news outlets are suggesting nearly as many people moved out... well, fake news. Even in the middle of pandemic lockdowns, Florida still added a net 816 people per day on average last year. That’s a remarkable rate of growth. And for the third-largest state to add 1.4% more people in a single year, in the middle of a pandemic, is equally stunning. But instead, the stories focus on heat and hurricanes running people out of our state but finding a few of the outliers to quote for their stories. That’s what happens when you have narratives in search of a story rather than reporting and presenting the facts.
The bottom line is this. Florida’s still awesome. Most new media still stinks. And Florida’s adding greater than 800 people per day.
Photo by: Getty Images