Florida’s Fourth Estate

University of Central Florida student Jack Sweeney recently sat down for an interview with Florida’s Fourth Estate hosts Matt Austin and Ginger Gadsden. He said he didn’t mean to start a battle with one of the most powerful men in tech, but that’s exactly where he has found himself. Sweeney said it all started when he was just a child. His dad worked in the airline industry, so he would track planes to make sure his dad would be home on time. “And then I had an interest in Elon Musk, and where he was, what he was doing. And then I figured that he had a private jet. And that I could track it myself. But nobody was really doing it. So I started doing it during my free time during COVID,” he said. But when Sweeney posted that info to Twitter he said Musk didn’t like it. “So he hit me up in the Twitter DMs and it was like 1 a.m. here in Florida time,” he said. “He’s like, ‘Hey, can you take this down?’ And then he was asking how it worked. He didn’t have really any idea of how it worked. And I was like, ‘You know, I’ve put a lot of work into this (to) just take it down.’ You know, I didn’t really want to.” Sweeney said the conversation continued for about a month, with the two exchanging a couple of messages a week. Eventually, Sweeney said Musk offered him $5,000, but, he turned that down and asked for more. The two were not able to come to an agreement and after Elon Musk bought Twitter the tech company suspended Sweeney’s account. Sweeney still has a tracking account on Facebook and other platforms. Despite all of the controversy surrounding his introduction to the tech industry, Sweeney said he would like to continue working in the industry professionally. “I think in the future I might want to do (something) with AI and GPT, stuff like that, it’s very interesting,” Sweeney said. Software programming is also on his radar as are planes. “I’m still interested in doing something with aviation and aircraft,” the UCF student said. To learn more about Sweeney’s plans for the future, how the University of Central Florida is responding to him making national headlines and more, check out Florida’s Fourth Estate. You can download the podcast from wherever you listen to podcasts or watch it anytime on News 6+. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There is a new affordable approach to taking a vacation in Florida and it allows you to bring the comforts of home with you. The owners of Florida Van Life renovate vans and turn them into a vacation on wheels. Lebelo Mosehle said he and Estelle Bain wanted to make travel more affordable. Instead of buying a brand-new RV which could cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars, Moshele told Florida’s Fourth Estate hosts Matt Austin and Ginger Gadsden the most they have ever charged for one of their renovated vans is $45,000. Others have gone for under $25,000. “The way we determine our price is by how much you put in, the time it takes us, and also the year of the vehicle, but mostly a lot of people who buy our vans they’re hippies so they don’t really care about ‘Oh, yeah, I want it to be so perfect, like 2023 whatever.’ As long as it is a van it’s got that retro look, and it feels like you’re back in like the 70s. That’s what our people are going for,” Moshele said. While Mosehle focuses on sales, Bain focuses on design. She said she incorporates the things that she likes into each of her custom creations. One of her vehicles is a redesigned U-Haul truck. Bain took Austin and Gadsden inside to show off the skylight she created. She said it really allows you to feel like “you’re sleeping underneath the trees, but you’re still protected.” She said, as a single woman, she was always concerned about safety and has designed her vehicles with that in mind. Bain admits some of the re-imagined vans can get warm in the summer, but said a fan can help with that and that it is still much more comfortable than a tent. It also includes a cooktop, bed, shower and toilet. To learn more about Mosehle and Bain and their business check out Florida’s Fourth Estate. You can download it from wherever you listen to podcasts or watch it anytime on News 6+. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Doug Williams says the tide is turning in the NFL. “I feel like in the next five to 10 years, we’re gonna have over half of the quarterbacks in the league playing football as a Black quarterback, and it’s not about the color of their skin. It’s about what they can do and how well they can play,” he said. Williams was the first Black quarterback to play in and win a Super Bowl in 1988. But with the way the NFL draft is going and as more coaches give Black quarterbacks a chance, Williams said Florida’s Fourth Estate hosts Matt Austin and Ginger Gadsden he expects a majority of the quarterbacks in the league to be Black in the coming years. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Most of us have been there: You have a dream and you wake up struck by how real it felt. But why did you have that dream? An Orlando-based mental health counselor says he is helping people figure it out all, while at the same time improving their mental and physical health. Jesse Lyon describes himself as a Clinical Hypnotherapist and Dream Interpreter who helps people work through the trauma they face in their day-to-day life by analyzing the dreams they have at night. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Usually, when you think of surfing, you don’t think of dogs. Well, that’s about to change. Flagler Beach is preparing to welcome back the Hang 8 Dog Surfing event. The city’s mayor said it all “came about because of Wednesday,” her 8-pound chihuahua. Mayor Suzie Johnston told Florida’s Fourth Estate hosts Matt Austin and Ginger Gadsden her pup has no fear of the water. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Matt Austin and Ginger Gadsden share their thoughts on recent headlines, including a scandal at the Orlando Museum of Art, where works were falsely attributed to artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For many people going to work means driving to the office and logging into their computer, but for News 6 Maintenance Supervisor Ben Vaughn the day starts 1,300 feet up in the air. Vaughn has worked as an engineer at News 6 in Orlando since 2018. When he first accepted the gig, he said he didn’t know it would involve going hundreds of feet up into the air to make repairs to a TV news tower. Vaughn spoke with Florida’s Fourth Estate hosts Matt Austin and Ginger Gadsden about how he came to News 6. “I was in video post-production in New York for 20 years. When I took this job, I was like, ‘Oh, I can work on machines and computers,’” he said. Not long after he was hired, he said there was an issue at the tower. He said he was nervous the first time he had to make a repair so high above the ground. “I actually never stood up the entire time I was up there. I was on my hands and knees. Absolutely terrified,” Vaughn said. Over time, despite the swaying, clanking and vibrating, Vaugh said he has gotten a lot more comfortable working on a 1,300-foot-high platform, but he knows he has to be careful. When he does go up, he said he always has a partner with him. “If one person gets incapacitated, you can’t call Orange County Fire Rescue, they can’t get you. So, one guy has to be able to get the other person off the tower, get them into the elevator,” he said. But, when you think of an elevator, it’s not one of those fancy ones you see in a hotel. It looks more like a small metal cage and when two men are riding in it together for 26 minutes up and 26 minutes down, things can get tight. Vaughn said he often rides “belly to belly” and that “Larry and I have spent a lot of close time together.” Most recently the duo went up the tower to fix an antenna that allows viewers at home to see the signal from the Sky 6 helicopter live. Vaughn said he and the engineering department go up twice a year just to repair, replace or inspect those antennas. When they go up Vaughn said, it’s important to make sure you don’t go up too high. “You’d die... you’re talking about an enormous amount of RF energy. I mean, we oftentimes, around the base of the tower, you’ll see dead birds and whatnot. I mean, it’s like being in a microwave,” he said. “If you were to go any higher than, say 1,500 feet, then you would have to wear an RF alarm, similar to a radiation alarm.” As with everything else in Florida, Vaughn said weather also plays a factor in when engineers can go up the tower to make repairs. “In Florida, you’re off that tower by one o’clock. If it’s done or not, you’re off,” he said. The reason? The high risk of lightning strikes. When you are trying to get down, if for some reason, the elevator doesn’t work, Vaugh said, that’s where your safety harness comes into play. “There’s a ladder” and you would have to lock and unlock your harness the whole way down. “You better have nice boots on. Otherwise, the insides of your feet are going to be destroyed,” he said. Despite the inherent risk involved, Vaughn said he and the whole engineering team at News 6 is committed to doing whatever it takes, “We all have a common goal, and that goal is to make sure that the station stays on the air,” Vaughn said. To learn more, check out Florida’s Fourth Estate. You can download it from wherever you listen to podcasts or watch it anytime on News 6+. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Matt Picarelli has a long road to recovery. He said he was only in the water for about 15 minutes when a shark chomped down on his foot while surfing in Fort Pierce. “Something grabbed my foot and right when it bit me I saw the shark, it kind of flailed in the water and swam away from me really quick,” he said. Right after that, he said he told a friend he was with that he had been bitten. “We gotta get out of the water, I got bit. She thought I was joking, I literally grabbed her and said ‘Get out of the water, get out of the water.’ She still thinks I’m joking, I get to the shore, we both look down and it was horrible,” Picarelli said. He said the four to five-foot-long shark did a lot of damage. “The scene of it was brutal. There was blood everywhere when I got onto the beach,” Picarelli said. “It was a fully opened wound, I almost lost all of my toes, 50 stitches, broken tendon, chipped bone.” The surfer, who lives a very active life, said the attack — which happened in early March — will take several more weeks if not months to recover from, but he believes he will make a full recovery. However, the experience has been challenging emotionally. “That first week of it happening, I couldn’t process it for a few days,” Picarelli said. “I was having some nightmares, I was having some terrors. Then some of the dreams I was having — it turned into like me being in that same situation getting bit by a shark, then it eventually turned into me sitting at home in my bed and a shark blasting through the door, it was crazy.” He said he does want to get back in the water, but moving forward he will be more careful. Picarelli has started a GoFundMe to help with his medical bills. You can learn more about Picarelli’s shark encounter and why he believed the water was clear of sharks on the day he was bitten. Listen to the full conversation on Florida’s Fourth Estate. You can download the podcast from wherever you listen to podcasts or watch anytime on News 6+. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When many people think of wildlife experts in Central Florida, they think of Savannah Boan. She is the Park Director and Crocodilian Enrichment Coordinator at Gatorland. But, if you ask her, what brought her to Central Florida was the allure of Disney World. “(I) ran away to Florida when I was 16 years old because I wanted to be Cinderella,” she said. “Of course, Disney doesn’t hire 16-year-old runaways and I was way too tall to be Cinderella.” So she started applying to work at Gatorland. The gator pro said it took seven years to get a gig at the wildlife park and once she came on board she never looked back. “I’m so honored every day that I get to come to work with these amazing dinosaurs,” she said. Boan now focuses her time caring for alligators and crocodiles, working to protect their habitats and educating the community about the reptiles. She recently took Florida’s Fourth Estate hosts Matt Austin and Ginger Gadsden around the wildlife park to talk about gator mating season. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Do you feel like you are being nickeled and dimed every time you get behind the wheel? If you use toll roads in Florida, you might be right. Trucker Employment site, TransForce states Florida has “over 719 miles of toll roads crisscrossing the state”. Researchers say Orange County has the most, with 150+ miles of toll roads. UCF History Professor Jim Clark joined Matt Austin and Ginger Gadsden on Florida’s Fourth Estate to talk about why traveling on so many of Florida’s roads comes at a cost. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The war in Ukraine has been raging for over a year now. For people here in Florida, it can feel like it is a world away. But for one University of Central Florida student, it has been her reality daily. Mia Willard lives in Kyiv and attends classes virtually. Her dad lives in Lake Nona. Since Russia’s attack on Ukraine began, Willard has focused on humanitarian efforts and helping those who have lost so much during the war. Within the last few weeks, she flew back to Florida to spend some time with her dad. While here, she talked to Matt Austin and Ginger Gadsden on Florida’s Fourth Estate about what it has been like helping survivors across Ukraine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nobody goes to Tallahassee wanting to get elected thinking, “You know what my goals are? It’s not schools, it’s not education, it’s not better roads: I want homeowners to get less credit for the clean energy that they generate.” But Orlando Sentinel columnist Scott Maxwell said lawmakers can get pulled into some pretty strange positions by Florida’s special interest groups. The Cambridge Dictionary describes a special interest group as “a group of people who have particular demands and who try to influence political decisions involving them.” Recently, Maxwell sat down with Matt Austin and Ginger Gadsden on Florida’s Fourth Estate to break down his top five list of special interests influencing how our government works. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

She is used to bringing stories to people in Central Florida on the radio and TV, but now Sandra Osborne is using her voice in a new way. After stepping away from journalism, Osborne took up voice acting and is getting her son involved in the fun, too. The former newscaster recently sat down with Matt Austin and Ginger Gadsden on the Florida’s Fourth Estate podcast to talk about her new career. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this episode of Florida’s Fourth Estate, hosts Ginger Gadsden and Matt Austin speak with Dr. Abigail Disney, whose grandfather was Roy Disney and great-uncle was Walt Disney. They are the two men who built Disneyland in Anaheim, California, and Disney World in Orlando, Florida. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At age 16, most kids are thinking about getting their driver’s license or making TikToks, except for Tiffani Gay, who is focused on changing the world with her award-winning invention. By combining two technologies used in everyday life, Gay is striving to get results for the over 2.2 billion people worldwide with visual impairments. The Orlando Science Schools sophomore joined Matt Austin and Ginger Gadsden on Florida’s Fourth Estate to explain the story and the science behind an electronic headset she created. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices