TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - Steve Miller, a veteran investigative reporter has been hired by The Associated Press to help cover Florida’s 2014 legislative session.
The appointment was announced Tuesday by South Region Editor Lisa Marie Pane and Florida News Editor Terry Spencer.
Miller, 56, has 20 years of journalism experience, including stints at the Texas Watchdog, the Washington Times and the Dallas Morning News. He has written three true crime books and two on rock and punk music. Recently he has been freelancing for the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting, People magazine, Al Jazeera America and The Daily Beast.
For FCIR, he has done several pieces that got major play in the state’s newspapers, including pieces on how favored companies get job incentive money from the state and counties but actually create few jobs; how a corporation that has state House Speaker Will Weatherford on its board received contracts from Citizens Insurance, the state-backed insurer of last resort; and how the loosening of restrictions on nursing education has led to the creation of programs that aren’t meeting the basic needs of its students.
In Texas, his story on how a state representative’s public relations company received $350,000 in no-bid contracts from a county hospital ended her career. He also did a story about how the vice chairman of the state House’s insurance committee was paid $620,000 to be the attorney for homeowners in a settlement with insurance companies over damage caused by Hurricane Ike.
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