"Windy" day in Public Affairs Reporting

William "Windy" March, chief political reporter for the Tampa Tribune, visited our Public Affairs Reporting class on Tuesday.

March, whose whimsical nickname never was explained, spoke for close to an hour on the various methods of obtaining political public records that we might find useful as professional journalists.

Again, just like every guest speaker before him, March came through with an unexpected level of humor. Thinking that I would struggle to stay awake, I was pleasantly surprise to find myself laughing, as well as listening intently.

"When I started covering politics, God was still a county commissioner," said March.

I laughed.

Apparently Mr. "Windy" has been around the business for quite some time, which made his advice even more valuable.

One tidbit, a story about a Miami business owner and immigrant from Venezuela, particularly grabbed my attention.

Mark Jimenez, during President Bill Clinton's run for office, found himself under scrutiny from reporters for some shady business involving his employee's campaign donations.

Reporters scoured various records and found that employee's of Jimenez's business had each donated $1,000 dollars to Clinton's campaign fund. On the surface, this alone was odd, but it got even stranger.

When closer scrutiny was paid to the employee's voter registration, it came to light that the majority of them didn't even vote in the election. Why would someone who didn't care enough to vote, care enough to spend $1,000 of their own dollars to donate to the campaign of a candidate, for whom that never voted?

Jimenez found himself under the spotlight. He had been exposed. It appeared evident that he had given the employee's the money and asked them to donate it, simply because there are rules in place that prohibit anyone from donating over a certain amount toward a campaign.

I knew things like this happened, but I had never actually heard a story like this from someone who was such an expert in the field, in which I will be pursuing a career. It was truly inspiring and I thank "Windy" for his time and his advice.