{"id":137690,"date":"2026-01-30T15:11:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T15:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/137690\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T15:11:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T15:11:10","slug":"state-affairs-florida-launches-with-dara-kam-jim-saunders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/137690\/","title":{"rendered":"State Affairs Florida launches with Dara Kam, Jim Saunders"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former News Service of Florida veteran journalists Dara Kam and Jim Saunders have joined State Affairs, a nonpartisan news and policy platform featuring in-depth coverage of state governments.<\/p>\n

The two are launching State Affairs Florida, expanding the national platform to the Sunshine State starting Feb. 2.<\/p>\n

Kam will serve as Senior Statehouse Reporter for the new bureau, while Saunders will serve as managing editor.<\/p>\n

\u201cFlorida\u2019s policy decisions ripple far beyond its borders. Opening a Tallahassee bureau lets us bring depth, context and institutional knowledge to coverage that too often gets flattened by daily churn,\u201d State Affairs<\/a> Editor-in-Chief and Chief Content Officer Alison Bethel said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s part of our broader vision to steadily expand our footprint nationwide with fair, independent journalism. Dara and Jim know Florida\u2019s Capitol and power centers inside and out, and they share that commitment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Kam, who previously hosted \u201cDeeper Dive With Dara Kam<\/a>\u201d for News Service of Florida, will continue podcasting under a new title, \u201cBetween the Lines with Dara Kam.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe journey continues,\u201d she said of her new endeavor. \u201cI am thrilled to join State Affairs with colleague Jim Saunders and am dedicated to continuing to provide the comprehensive analysis of Florida politics and government our audience relies on and respects.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saunders, meanwhile, shared his colleague\u2019s exuberance, saying he plans to make it \u201ca must-read in Tallahassee.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDara and I have provided trusted coverage of state government and politics for years, and I look forward to this next chapter.\u201d<\/p>\n

State Affairs officials describe the outlet as a \u201cpolicy and politics intelligence platform\u201d that combines \u201con-the-ground, nonpartisan reporting from statehouse journalists with AI-powered legislative and regulatory tools.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The staffing shuffle comes after it was reported Jan. 14 that Kam and Saunders were leaving the News Service of Florida. This week, that outlet announced the hire of Gray Rohrer as Executive Editor and Ana Go\u00f1i-Lessan as Senior Reporter, filling the void created by Kam and Saunders\u2019 departure.<\/p>\n

News Service of Florida Group Publisher Tom Allon said of the new hires that \u201ctransitions are a natural part of any newsroom.\u201d He assured that Rohrer and Go\u00f1i-Lessan\u2019s expertise \u201censures that our coverage remains as sharp and reliable as ever\u201d and said the outlet is moving \u201cinto a season of expansion and innovation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former News Service of Florida veteran journalists Dara Kam and Jim Saunders have joined State Affairs, a nonpartisan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137691,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[67159,25304,67160,67161,67162,52126,67163,67164,232,234,233,67165],"class_list":["post-137690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-alison-bethel","tag-ana-goni-lessan","tag-dara-kam","tag-gray-roher","tag-jim-saunders","tag-news-service-of-florida","tag-state-affairs","tag-state-affairs-florida","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news","tag-tom-allon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}