Tag Archives: business journalism

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Spotlight Tampa Bay: Journalism In The Community

In the fall of 2024, I moderated two Tampa Bay Times “Spotlight Tampa Bay” community event series, in which I led panel discussions about important topics affecting local residents.

In September, the Tampa Bay Times partnered with the AARP to host a series about family caregiving. In Florida, 2.7 million families grapple with the cost related to caring for aging parents and adults or children with disabilities.

In December, the Tampa Bay Times partnered with TECO Energy to host a panel discussion about hurricane hardening. Florida and Tampa Bay endured a historic hurricane season in 2024, weathering landfalls from a trio of storms — Debby, Helene and Milton. The storms brought record-breaking storm surge, heavy rainfall and powerful winds that wreaked havoc across the region. These events led to widespread power outages, overwhelmed wastewater systems and thousands of tons of contaminated debris.

You can learn more about the Tampa Bay Times Spotlight Tampa Bay series here.

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Buying Up The Bay: A Tampa Bay Times special report

Throughout 2024, I edited a series of investigative stories by Tampa Bay Times business reporters highlighting the growing influence of corporate ownership over Tampa Bay and Florida’s residential rental pool. Over seven installments, Buying Up The Bay explored how private equity firms are buying up single family housing in Florida at record breaking rates, raising prices on tenants and clogging up local courts with a high volume of evictions.

Read the full series here.

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Justine Griffin Selected As A 2018 SABEW Health Care Fellow

[Press release from SABEW:]

Sixteen journalists have been selected as fellows for SABEW’s sixth annual Health Care Symposium made possible by a grant from The Commonwealth Fund.

The group will gather in Washington, D.C., June 28-30 at the National Press Club and at the Bloomberg, Washington, D.C. bureau. The symposium will help the fellows better understand health-care economics and will provide an update on the Affordable Care Act. Fellows will be able to share and test out story ideas.

The 2018 health care fellows are:

  • Emily Baumgaertner, news assistant at The New York Times
  • Jenny Deam, senior health care reporter at the Houston Chronicle
  • Amanda Eisenberg, New York health care reporter at POLITICO
  • Justine Griffin, health and medicine reporter at the Tampa Bay Times
  • Chris Larson, health care and higher education reporter at Louisville Business First
  • Jacquie Lee, reporter at Bloomberg Law
  • Rory Linnane, reporter at USA Today Network, Wisconsin
  • Kathryn Mayer, editor-in-chief at Employee Benefit News
  • Elizabeth O’Brien, senior writer at MONEY Magazine
  • Elle Perry, digital producer at Memphis Business Journal
  • Yiqin Shen, senior reporter at Mergermarket
  • Greg Slabodkin, managing editor at Health Data Management
  • Joel Stinnett, health care and technology reporter at Nashville Business Journal
  • Kayla Webster, reporter at Sacramento Business Journal
  • Russ Wiles, business writer/columnist at Arizona Republic/AZCentral.com
  • Liz Young, reporter at Albany Business Review

“Journalists need support to cover an unclear and rapidly changing health care landscape,” said Kathleen Graham, executive director, SABEW. “The symposium will help reporters better understand the future of the Affordable Care Act, Medicare, single payer health care models and prescription drug pricing.”

Speakers include Sara Collins, vice president for the Health Care Coverage and Access program at The Commonwealth Fund; Sabrina Corlette, J.D., research professor at Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University’s Health Policy Institute; Robin Rudowitz, associate director, program on Medicaid and the uninured at Kaiser Family Foundation and Zachary Tracer, reporter at Bloomberg News. Additional speakers will be added to the agenda. Ridgely Ochs, former health care reporter at Newsday, is producing the symposium.

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Tampa Bay Times: One Florida bank is willing to risk it all on cannabis when others won’t

First Green Bank, a community bank based in Orlando, is the first in Florida to work with licensed medical marijuana companies. [Photos courtesy of First Green Bank]

By Justine Griffin

Opening a medical marijuana dispensary in Florida naturally comes with a lot of red tape.

Marijuana is still considered an illegal substance at the federal level, despite the 29 states that have legalized it for recreational or medicinal use in recent years. That makes it nearly impossible for banks to fund marijuana distributing companies, which in turn makes it hard for those companies to sign a lease for a store or warehouse or even get insurance.

But one Orlando area community bank is willing to take on the risk.

First Green Bank, a community bank that began in 2009, is working with six out of the seven currently licensed medical marijuana dispensing companies in Florida.

“It all comes down to compliance and transparency, since we’re subject to enhanced money laundering rules,” said James Whitcomb, the chief financial officer of Surterra Holdings Inc., an Atlanta-based medical marijuana company which has grow operations and dispensaries in Florida, including in Tampa. Surterra is a client of First Green Bank. “In order for banks to be compliant with us as customers, they have perform a lot more due diligence. It basically means they have to track every single transaction we make to ensure that no dollar goes to any gang or criminal enterprise,” Whitcomb said.

Because federal law makes it illegal to possess or distribute marijuana — no matter the laws passed in an individual state — it’s considered money laundering, according to the American Bankers Association. It would take an act of Congress to change that. Because of this, most banks in Florida have steered clear of working with the state’s seven licensed growers and distributors of cannabis.

Read more here.

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Tampa Bay Times: Florida’s first walk-in clinics for medical marijuana are opening in Tampa Bay

Patient Julie DiPietrantonio, 67, of St. Petersburg, is examined by Dr. Howard Riker of Tetra Health Care. DiPietrantonio suffers from chronic pain caused by spinal stenosis, degenerative arthritis, and sacroiliitis. She is looking for relief by using medical marijuana. [SCOTT KEELER | Times]

By Justine Griffin

TAMPA — Inside a nondescript white-washed office building across from St. Joseph’s Hospital in Tampa is one of the state’s first walk-in clinics for patients seeking medical marijuana.

Similar to a walk-in urgent care center, Tetra Health Care is a place where patients can see a licensed doctor about obtaining medical marijuana as a form of treatment.

Tracilea Young, president and founder of the California-based chain of clinics, saw an opportunity to expand in Florida after the most recent round of legislation passed in Tallahassee earlier this year. She’s opened six Tetra Health Care clinics in Florida so far. Five of those are in the Tampa Bay area, including St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Tampa and Brandon locations. She plans to open 20 more across the state by next year.

“With such a high population of aging communities, medical marijuana is needed here,” Young said. “You wouldn’t believe the patients we see who come in here with Excel spreadsheets detailing all the medications they’re on and when they take which pill. I just want to cry for them.”

Medical marijuana is a new but burgeoning industry in Florida, with laws that change nearly every year. Lawmakers have limited the selling and growing of marijuana to seven companies, but that number will expand to 17 this year, based on last-minute legislation that came out of a special session in Tallahassee earlier in this summer.

Read more here.