INFLUENCE
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Marc CAPUTO {MEDIA}
PHOTO: Mary Beth Tyson
As sunlight streams through the blinds of a home office converted out of a spare bedroom in Coral Gables, a middle-aged man sits chatting away on a home phone that would be considered an antique to most of his younger sources. Wearing flip-flops, camouflage cargo shorts, and a Miami football T-shirt that has been through the wash a few too many times, Marc Caputo would blend in easily at a Jimmy Buffet concert or any of the many beachside watering holes nearby. But Marc has always been a little … unconventional. When Marc left the vaunted Miami Herald newsroom to join an online-only, Washington-based blog, it seemed very “unconventional,” but so did “Caputo Cam” at first. Since launching Politico’s Florida operation, Marc has built it into a powerhouse and brought some of Florida’s best reporting talent with him. He’s broken some of the country’s biggest stories and taken down some of its biggest political figures, all while outpacing more traditional outlets with more resources. As newer outlets like Politico and Florida Politics shift the media landscape towards the “unconventional,” the most powerful newsroom in Florida politics may not be a newsroom at all; it may be this converted spare bedroom. – Brad Herold, VP, Something Else Strategies
88 | INFLUENCE SUMMER 2018