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THIS IS NOT SATIRE. THIS IS A TRUE AND ACCURATE NEWS STORY.
LEBANON, Ind. — A journalist for the Lebanon Reporter, who has threatened to punch and pepper spray people who choose not to wear facemasks, fabricated a story on Friday in an attempt to blame REAL News Central Indiana Journalist Clifton French and Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita for a bomb threat at Lebanon Middle School. RNCI scooped the Lebanon Reporter on a story this month involving girls being forced to share the same locker rooms as boys at LMS. That story was then picked up nationally and shared by Attorney General Rokita. Shortly after, some unknown lunatic called in a fake bomb threat to LMS.
While Lebanon Reporter Journalist Maria Flora is attempting to somehow connect a threat of violence at LMS to RNCI’s Clifton French and Attorney General Rokita, she has a history of actually threatening violence against people who disagree with her politically.
A quick search of Flora’s social media feeds show a history of angry, political posts — including a threat to punch people in April of 2020.
“I stepped into a restaurant to pick up lunch yesterday and two unmasked men came in right behind me and stood too close. One thought he was very funny and kept talking loudly and telling jokes, and I swear he was blowing slobber all over everyone… People are going to start punching each other if some of us don’t figure out how to behave.”
Several people commented on Flora’s post. She “liked” many of the comments which were calling for increasing violent behavior.
“Should have punched them.” One comment which received a like from Flora stated.
“I was wondering about pepper spray…” Another commenter wrote, receiving a like from the reporter.
MARIA FLORA LIES
Flora’s story in the Lebanon Reporter gives several false statements regarding RNCI’s coverage of the situation at LMS. Flora claims RNCI misreported several facts of the case, however, she cites only the headline of the story as evidence: ‘“That was the first time I saw a boy half-naked” — 11yo girl forced to share locker room with boy at central Indiana middle school‘ –The headline is 100% accurate.
In an attempt to discredit RNCI’s Journalist Clifton French, Flora repeatedly calls him a blogger in her story when he is in fact a Murrow and AP award winning journalist with nearly two decades of experience.
FACT: Investigative Reporter Clifton French, the founder of REAL News LLC, started his own independent news outlet in northern Indiana in 2020, and recently expanded to cover central Indiana. Prior to that, he was working for ABC in Tampa, Florida, with a beat covering the FBI, ATF, SOCOM, CentCom, Homeland Security, GITMO and more. He has covered several national stories including the Pulse Nightclub Shooting, George Zimmerman, he was landfall crew for coverage of Hurricane Irma — the list goes on. He moved to Indiana in 2018 for services and education for his child with Down syndrome.
Flora and the Lebanon Reporter never contacted RNCI, our sister outlet REAL News Michiana or Clifton French for comment on the story. However, RNCI has reached out to Flora for comment — as of publication, she has not responded.
REAL News LLC has sent our attorneys all of the information regarding the libelous reporting of Flora and The Lebanon Reporter. We are currently weighing our legal options.
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