Shooti

@bambooshooti.bsky.social

Writer. Lifelong Democrat. Devil's Advocate. My spirit animal is the shrew. Unofficial historian of the Resistance. People call me Shooti.

@bambooshooti.bsky.social

Morgan retired from full-time reporting in 2013, but continued to write regular freelance columns for the Florida Phoenix. She died on Sept. 20, 2023, at age 82, and her memorial service was held inside the chamber of the Florida House of Representatives to honor her impact on state history. /end

Lucy Morgan during her time as a guest contributor to the Florida Phoenix. After she retired from the Tampa Bay Times in 2013, Morgan joined the nonprofit Florida Phoenix as a regular guest columnist, using her decades of institutional memory to critique the evolving landscape of Florida government. She called out growing partisanship and gridlock, arguing that modern lawmakers lacked the independence of previous generations. In February 2023, she wrote a scathing criticism of the state legislature for acting as a rubber stamp for Governor Ron DeSantis. She penned a poignant series paying tribute to the passing of the public-minded Florida leaders. Morgan also used her retirement years to serve as an informal advisor to the Phoenix’s editing staff, which was led by journalists she had previously mentored. The woman who never went to journalism school passed investigative tips to younger reporters and worked behind the scenes to keep local accountability reporting alive.
@bambooshooti.bsky.social

Morgan stepped down as Bureau Chief in 2006, but continued working as a correspondent and columnist. In 2010, she broke the “Taj Mahal” courthouse scandal, exposing judges who spent millions in taxpayer money on a lavish new appellate court building. The expose triggered state judicial reforms. /9

Lucy Morgan (left) and Tom Lee, President of the Florida Senate, hold a framed photo of Morgan to commemorate the naming of the Lucy Morgan Senate Press Gallery, 2005. Florida politicians viewed Morgan with a mix of deep dread, profound respect and grudging affection. In a state capital often dominated by intense partisan divides, she was viewed across the political spectrum as an unmovable institution. Her relentless interview style became legendary, and she had an unmatched network of sources. Because she based her stories on verifiable public records and bulletproof facts, even the politicians she exposed could rarely claim bias. The ultimate proof of how Florida’s political class viewed Morgan lies in the unprecedented honors they bestowed upon her. In 2005, the Florida Senate voted to name their press workspace the Lucy Morgan Senate Press Gallery. It was a striking gesture for politicians to honor the woman who made her career exposing their peers.
@bambooshooti.bsky.social

The St. Petersburg Times appointed Morgan as its Tallahassee Bureau Chief in 1986, and she spent the next two decades as the state capital’s top political watchdog. In 2005, the Florida Senate took the unprecedented step of naming its capital press gallery the Lucy Morgan Senate Press Gallery. /8

Lucy Morgan wields a news camera while talking on a giant “brick” cell phone, ca. 1985. The photo was staged to highlight the “portable” tools that were beginning to revolutionize field reporting for investigative journalists at the time. However, Morgan remained a traditional “shoe-leather” print reporter who weaponized public records and a legal pad. When she arrived as Tallahassee Bureau Chief, the capital press corps and state committees were dominated by men. She broke through that culture not by conforming to it, but by building a powerhouse operation that lifted others up. She turned the bureau into a masterclass for young reporters, particularly women. She taught her staff how to cajole and chase tight-lipped legislators until they divulged whatever information was being sought. Under her leadership, the bureau became a launching pad for journalists who went on to top leadership roles at major national institutions. Photo credit: Donn Dughi / Tampa Bay Times.
@bambooshooti.bsky.social

In 1985, Morgan became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for exposing rampant corruption and illegal target lists within the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office. Her reporting led to a grand jury indictment and the removal of Sheriff John Short from office. /7

Lucy Morgan (left) and Jack Reed, who co-won the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for their coverage of corruption within the Pasco County Sheriff’s Department. Jack Reed was a multi-award-winning journalist and editor for the St. Petersburg Times. While Morgan was the public face of the investigation, Reed was her co-author and co-investigator. Morgan excelled at cultivating whistleblowers and conducting high-stakes interviews, and Reed specialized in tracking down public data, financial ledgers and court documents. He helped map out the evidence needed to back up the tips Morgan’s anonymous sources were providing. It was dangerous work. Sheriff’s deputies tapped Morgan’s phone, tailed her car and placed threatening late-night phone calls to her home. To break the story without getting her sources fired or herself killed, Morgan used decoy vehicles and exchanged information with the wives of informants in department store dressing rooms.
@bambooshooti.bsky.social

In 1981-1982, Morgan investigated multi-million-dollar drug-smuggling rings tied to the “Dixie Mafia,” a loose confederation of thugs, crooks and corrupt politicians operating in the Southeastern U.S. Her series of reports led to more than 250 convictions and made her a Pulitzer Prize finalist. /6

Lucy Morgan works at her typewriter, ca. 1981. The “Dixie Mafia” controlled highly profitable vice networks, including drug trafficking, illegal gambling, prostitution and contract killings. By 1980, multi-million dollar drug-smuggling rings tied to this network were running rampant through rural northern Florida counties. Local law enforcement and politicians were embedded in the operations and protected the smugglers. Morgan drove daily into sparsely populated Dixie County. Dressed deliberately in a skirt, heels and stockings, she would traipse through muddy, insect-infested piney woods and swampy inlets along the Gulf of Mexico to map out the creeks being used to bring in drug shipments. She spent endless hours in local government offices copying thousands of public records. By connecting the dots between land deeds, court filings and financial records, she proved that county deputies and high-ranking local officials were on the drug smugglers’ payrolls.
@bambooshooti.bsky.social

Whistleblowers learned that Morgan would choose jail over breaking a promise of confidentiality. Her paper appealed the decision, and on July 30, 1976, the Florida Supreme Court overturned her conviction, ruling that the First Amendment shields journalists from government coercion. /5

Lucy Morgan (right) and Richard Morgan celebrate the Florida Supreme Court decision that overturned Lucy’s jail sentence for refusing to reveal a source. Morgan became the center of a First Amendment battle that established “reporter’s privilege” in Florida. On Nov. 1, 1973, Morgan published a story summarizing a sealed grand jury presentment regarding official corruption in Dade City. Within 12 hours of publication, a local prosecutor demanded she reveal who leaked the document. She refused to break her word to her source. The judge convicted her of criminal contempt and sentenced her to eight months in jail. Unfazed, Morgan prepared to serve her time, buying a book of poetry to read in her cell. However, her paper appealed the decision, keeping her out of jail while the case climbed the legal ladder for three years. On July 30, 1976, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the government cannot force a reporter to expose a source just so authorities can “silence the source.”
@bambooshooti.bsky.social

Reporters have to earn the trust of high-stakes sources, and Morgan proved her integrity under fire early in her career. In November 1973, she was convicted of criminal contempt and sentenced to eight months in jail for refusing to reveal the source who leaked a sealed grand jury document. /4

Lucy Morgan (center) talks on the phone in a motel room as fellow reporter Nancy Godfrey looks on, 1974. The two reporters rented the motel room after a telephone cable was severed in the St. Petersburg Times New Port Richey bureau. Morgan and Godfrey kept the makeshift newsroom operating while other staffers worked in the phoneless bureau. Because an investigative newsroom relies on phone lines to track leads and take tips, losing service was an emergency. Rather than waiting around for repairs, Morgan and Godfrey grabbed their notebooks, marched down the street to a nearby motel, and turned the motel room into a chaotic, makeshift newsroom for several hours. They kept lines of communication open with sources, conducted interviews and dictated breaking copy back to the main printing desks. The incident remains a legendary newsroom anecdote about Morgan’s refusal to let anything — even a physically cut phone line—stop her from getting the story out. Photo credit: Tampa Bay Times.
@bambooshooti.bsky.social

Morgan got the job covering Citrus County for 20 cents per word. She taught herself reporting and quickly proved to have a natural “bloodhound” instinct. In 1968, her reporting caught the attention of the St. Petersburg Times, which hired her as a roving reporter for Pasco and Hernando counties. /3

Lucy Morgan, ca. 1981. When Morgan moved from the Ocala Star-Banner to the St. Petersburg Times in 1968, her daily work underwent a dramatic shift. Both roles required her to cover rural Florida, but her transition to a resource-backed investigative journalist changed the scope and stakes. Her editors gave her the freedom to pull on threads. She dug into government documents, tracked down unindicted co-conspirators and exposed official misconduct. To navigate a deeply entrenched “good ol’ boy” political system, Morgan used societal biases to her advantage. She spoke with a soft Southern drawl and would sit in public meetings quietly knitting. Corrupt local officials underestimated her until she hit them with devastating questions. By the time she was thrown into the spotlight during her 1973 source-protection jail sentence, she had transitioned from a part-time novice paid by the word into one of the most ruthless investigative reporters in the state.
@bambooshooti.bsky.social

Newly divorced Morgan moved to rural Citrus County, Fla., in the mid-1960s to raise her three children. In 1965, an editor for the Ocala Star-Banner was looking for a part-time local “stringer.” The editor asked the local librarian who in town was well-read. The librarian recommended Morgan. /2

Front page of the Sunday edition of the Ocala Star-Banner, Nov. 7, 1965. When Lucy Morgan first started at the Star-Banner in 1965, her assignments were the definition of ordinary community reporting. She covered town council meetings, school board decisions, car crashes and fires, and wrote up community happenings, events and obituaries. Because she was paid 20 cents a word, she had a financial incentive to write as much as possible. However, it didn’t take long for her natural investigative instincts to change the scope of her assignments. With no formal journalism training, she began writing exposés on how local officials were spending public money. Within a few months, her sharp eye and refusal to copy down official press releases proved so valuable that the Star-Banner upgraded her from a part-time stringer to a full-time staff writer. She spent three years in Ocala honing the skills that would catch the attention of the St. Petersburg Times.
@bambooshooti.bsky.social

#ResistanceRoots

Lucy Morgan was born on this day in 1940 in Memphis, Tenn. She was an investigative reporter with the St. Petersburg Times (now the Tampa Bay Times) who was feared and revered by Florida politicians, lobbyists and law enforcement for her dedication to government accountability. /1

Lucy Morgan talks on the phone surrounded by notepads, ca. 1978. Morgan was the ultimate, uncompromising watchdog of Florida journalism. Over a trailblazing 50-year career, she transformed from a rural mother writing for 20 cents per word into one of the most respected investigative forces in American political history. She proved that meticulous, records-driven “shoe-leather” journalism could dismantle corrupt political machines, rogue sheriff departments and dangerous drug cartels. She valued the truth above partisan points, commanding equal parts terror and profound respect from both political parties. Ultimately, Morgan created a blueprint for fearless local journalism. She proved that a reporter armed with absolute accuracy, unyielding integrity and deep empathy for everyday citizens can singlehandedly check the abuses of the most powerful institutions in government.
@dcminx.bsky.socialReposted by @bambooshooti.bsky.social

🛢What the Iran war has done to the world’s energy supply, in charts. Fossil fuels produce 81% of global energy. Visual explainer - where the world’s energy comes from, how much is produced in the Middle East and which countries have strategic reserves to fall back on 👇

Older posts