Florida Governor Rick Scott's team, media in 'Twitter war'

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- Florida Gov. Rick Scott's top spokesman is getting in the habit of defending his boss from the media in 140 characters or less.

Scott's communication's director, Brian Burgess, uses Twitter to contradict and argue with reporters and criticize news sources. Shots have been fired back and forth in what one former reporter is calling a Twitter war between Burgess and the media.

A former political reporter who runs the Crowley Political Report blog says arguments that used to take place over the phone are becoming public.

Burgess says Scott has told his team to branch out beyond traditional media in delivering a message and he's used that challenge to be experimental on Twitter. He said the tone of the tweets may be tweaked as they learn what works and what doesn't.

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