Jennifer Orsi

Telling stories, trying new things. Love Florida, hate hurricanes. Family is my rock.

[David DeWitt @DC_DeWitt]

Regarding the Acton/Ramaswamy story, amazing local Ohio journalists are doing critical reporting. Most only have a few thousand followers. Meanwhile 'influencers' with tens or hundreds of thousands have been wildly irresponsible and contributed no facts of value. See the problem?

[Chris Tisch @christisch1]

Joe Redner, Tampa’s ‘strip club king,’ dies at 86, family says
https://t.co/LBVLcwsg5y

[David Frum @davidfrum]

Another way to think about Trump announcement today: If he increased US diesel imports from Canada by 4%, he would gain as much fuel as from this Russia deal. But the Canadians are global super-villains, so who wants to buy from them when you could enrich Putin instead?

[Waffle House @WaffleHouse]

This is the Waffle House Index as of 2:45PM (EST). Please stay safe and follow federal, state and local guidance.

[Tom Nichols @RadioFreeTom]

I oppose the death penalty, but I didn't always feel that way. I understand the people who support it - because I once was one of them.

But either way, the death penalty staged as a public spectacle is an abomination and stains us all.

[Jennifer Orsi @Jenorsi]

@michaelwhudson @NiemanLab People will think “multiple” is an exaggeration but it is not.

[Jennifer Orsi @Jenorsi]

@fineout @anaceballos_ So sorry to hear this. Sympathies to his family and thanks for his work informing the public.

[Jennifer Orsi @Jenorsi]

@DavidJNeal @Noirchick1 @TampaStephenson Damn, dude, I wish I had your memory after all these years!

[Emily L. Mahoney @mahoneysthename]

BREAKING: Consumer advocates filed explosive new documents alleging Duke Energy is trying to saddle Floridians with billions’ worth of increases to their bills because of data centers.

There’s only one catch: The exact number is redacted. https://t.co/igS9SpPOLW

[Carol Marbin Miller @MarbinMiller]

This will be a long thread. Please stick with it.

The Miami Herald, one of the premier legacy newspapers in America, laid off or wrote off more than 30 positions today – well over one-third of its editorial staff. The cuts include crucial accountability beats. (1)

[Ben Mullin @BenMullin]

scoop: Reporters from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg have been barred from next week's G20 meeting in Asheville, N.C.
https://t.co/wx4dip1Rgf

[Chris Murphy 🟧 @ChrisMurphyCT]

The AI companies claim their technology will enhance human creativity. But they are quietly undertaking a massive campaign to destroy human creativity.

Let me tell you the story of the AI companies' effort to feed rare books into their AI models and then destroy them.

[Jennifer Orsi @Jenorsi]

I don’t have a Dolly Parton story or memory. But what an amazing life she lived - she touched people with her art, she was a humanitarian who changed lives with her money, she was beloved by everyone for the person she was inside. Seems hard to do it any better.

[Anish Moonka @anishmoonka]

The doctor who delivered Dolly Parton in a one-room Tennessee cabin in 1946 was paid with a sack of cornmeal. Her father farmed other people's land and could not read or write. Eighty years later, the reading program she built in his name has mailed more than 300 million books.

She wrote "I Will Always Love You" on the same afternoon she wrote "Jolene," as a goodbye to Porter Wagoner, and released it in 1974. Elvis wanted it. The night before the session, Colonel Tom Parker called and said Presley would only record it if they got half the publishing, meaning half of everything the song ever earned. She had been in Nashville ten years by then. She said no, and cried all night. Whitney Houston cut her version in 1992, held number one for fourteen weeks, and Forbes later put Parton's royalties from it near $10 million. She put some of that money into an office complex in Nashville and called the place the house that Whitney built.

Dollywood opened in Pigeon Forge in 1986 because she wanted paychecks in the county she came from. Around 4,000 people work there now. Three million visitors come every year. The University of Tennessee put its economic impact at $1.8 billion, and it is the largest employer in Sevier County. Since 2022 the company has paid tuition, fees, and books in full for every worker from their first day, seasonal hires included.

Wildfires tore through those mountains in November 2016, killing fourteen people and destroying more than 2,400 buildings. Her foundation was handing out money within 48 hours. Every family that lost a home got $1,000 a month for six months, regardless of income. The final check was $5,000. Total delivered: $8.9 million.

In April 2020 she sent $1 million to Vanderbilt for coronavirus research. When Moderna's vaccine results ran in the New England Journal of Medicine that November, her fund appeared in the footnotes.

Carl Dean, her husband of nearly sixty years, died in March 2025. The note she wrote to fans afterward ended with the same five words she wrote for Porter Wagoner back in 1974. She died in Nashville today. Her family asked that instead of flowers, people give to the Imagination Library, which still mails 3.4 million books a month to children who will never get to meet her.

[Jennifer Orsi @Jenorsi]

@markkatches @TB_Times @Poynter Election night pizza!

[Céline Gounder, MD, ScM, FIDSA 🇺🇦 @celinegounder]

Merck stopped making the standalone measles, mumps and rubella vaccines in 2009, because nobody was ordering them. There is no licensed version in this country. No company has said it's building one, and the order only takes effect once those products exist. Merck estimates FDA approval for three new products would take more than 10 years.

I spoke with New York magazine's @nia_prater.

Save and send to a parent or a pediatrician: https://t.co/scwl8h1ZvV
Read & subscribe for free: https://t.co/10WfkI7OWT

[Jake Scott, MD @jakescottMD]

Today @WhiteHouse said the 2024 childhood schedule contained 84 vaccine doses. At the same event, Trump said 72. @SecKennedy said 94.

How do they get 84?

36 are annual flu and COVID doses projected out to age 18.

18 are COVID doses, a recommendation this administration itself ended. They inflated the number with a vaccine they removed, then used it to justify removing more.

And the HHS assessment counts one MMR injection as 3 doses, 1per disease. So splitting MMR doesn't cut their tally by a single dose. Same 6 doses, so 6 shots instead of 2.

They built a number that can't be lowered by the policy it was built to justify.
https://t.co/FzSYzW8WcD

[Jennifer Orsi @Jenorsi]

New from Poynter: What 100-plus federal actions reveal about the Trump administration’s campaign against the press https://t.co/YexGKElbrj

[Jamie Dupree @jamiedupree]

Suddenly the White House ballroom has a new name after a federal appeals court panel found that President Trump demolished and built something at the White House without authorization or funding from Congress

[Tom Huang @tomthuang]

If you're a new editor, consider applying for @Poynter's Edit to Elevate by Aug. 21: https://t.co/D4e1FTVDBD
You will:
- Strengthen your line editing skills, especially on deadline.
- Develop a strong sense of mission and purpose as an editor.
- Take on a coaching mindset and...

[Jennifer Orsi @Jenorsi]

So the Florida AG is telling the bishops of the Catholic Church what should and should not be a religious exemption under Catholic doctrine?

[Gary Fineout @fineout]

Florida's AG is warning those who run the Catholic Church in the state that they could lose access to private school vouchers due to their vaccine policies. Catholic schools historically have served a large # of families receiving vouchers