A cease-and-desist letter is a letter, usually from an attorney, that threatens or implies a threat to start some kind of legal or official action should recipients fail to stop whatever they’re doing. The redundancy of demanding both ceasing and desisting is meant to emphasize that this is serious.

A good cease-and-desist letter is signed by somebody who can work some kind of legal action and specifies some law that would allow the sender to take some unpleasant next-step action.

Not good cease-and-desist letter

The Orlando Sentinel recently received a cease-and-desist letter from the Florida Department of Children and Families. This was not a good cease-and-desist letter. No legal violation was alleged. Nobody even signed the letter. It was just a state agency demanding that reporters back off from an embarrassing story. And the governor echoed that demand by posting the letter on the social media service X with the taunting comment, “bottom feeders gonna bottom feed.”

The Sentinel editorial board promptly responded with an editorial saying it wasn’t going to cease or desist its reporting, which is still in the works. It won’t stop, either.

As a former editorial writer, I can tell you that few pieces of persuasive prose feel better in the writing than a good, old-fashioned, we-will-not-be-intimidated editorial.

It is a truth of media relations universally acknowledged that when a government agency and/or a sitting officeholder gets heavy-handed in trying to quash a news story, that story doesn’t get quashed. It balloons.

It sets off a flashing light to other news organizations to get cracking on the same story or they might miss something. It brings new attention to whatever is being objected to. Thus, you are now reading a column about news stories that another publication hasn’t even published yet.

The topic of the state’s letter was the newspaper’s reporting on Hope Florida. Hope Florida Foundation is a charitable foundation that supports state efforts to redirect recipients of state aid to private charities instead of relying on state programs. And maybe, just maybe, in the process, raise First Lady Casey DeSantis’ profile ahead of a possible run for governor.

It is something of a tradition among Southern governors to put up their wives to run for office when they are out running for president or are otherwise inconvenienced by term limits. (See the Wikipedia entry for George Wallace, the late segregationist Alabama governor, not the actor.)

What's the controversy surrounding Hope Florida?

Hope Florida has been under scrutiny for the way it ended up with $10 million as part of a Medicaid overcharge settlement with the state. Money that somehow ended up with political committees fighting last year’s marijuana legalization ballot initiative. A legislative investigation into the charity ended inconclusively with questions unanswered, witnesses unavailable and materials forwarded to the Second Judicial Circuit’s State Attorney’s Office.

For her part, Mrs. DeSantis was recently in Daytona Beach talking up the program's accomplishments. “There’s a lot of misinformation right now about a lot,” she lamented. Her husband has been more direct, calling questions about the mystery money “bogus,” “a hoax” and a “political smear.” He characterized the Republican representative chairing the House committee’s investigation as just “one Jackass in the Legislature.”

The Sentinel and other outlets have already done themselves proud in covering this complex story. When I read about the travels of the Medicaid money, I try to imagine index cards on a bulletin board connected with a web of red yarn. It’s not easy to visualize or report on. And if there weren’t more details to come out, nobody would have bothered with the bright PR stunt of a cease-and-desist letter.

The state’s response to this reporting may have been wildly counterproductive and even comically ham-handed, but it is nonetheless concerning. It’s a bad sign anytime the government attempts to suppress news organizations’ work. Next time, they might just be better able to keep a lid on discomforting information.

Mark Lane is a News-Journal columnist. His email is .