Among other things, the new task force is to identify “effective practices regarding engagement of Federal scientists….with news media and social media.”
These scientific integrity efforts in the federal government have a sordid history related to free press issues, one in which the political structure’s need for control has won out over the support for openness in science.
The censorship banning employees in federal agencies from speaking to journalists without the authorities’ oversight become widely apparent in federal agencies in the early 1990s, according to the experience of a number of journalists. The practice may migrated from the business sector. Over the next decade and a half the controls became progressively tighter and more pervasive.
The public was given no notice of this drastic limitation in the people’s right to know about their government. There was certainly no change to the Constitution. Agencies just started doing the restrictions. When reporters would call people in the agencies like they always had, suddenly those staff members said the reporter had to go through the public information office. Then there were more and more delays, problems with getting through and controls on the process.
But in 2009 President Obama had come into office saying he wanted to have the most transparent administration in history.
In early 2010 thirteen journalism organizations, including the Society of Professional Journalists and the Association of Healthcare Journalists, sent a letter to the administration asking that the restrictions be ended.
That year President Obama’s Office of Science and Technology Policy was tasked with writing a scientific integrity policy.
Journalists were given reason to hope that document would eliminate the restrictions on reporters and people inside the government talking to each other. We worked with the Office of Science and Technology Policy behind the scenes, believing the new administration would see what a dark place these walls make of science in the federal government.
The memorandum from science advisor John Holdren came out on December 17, 2010. In true public relations fashion, it spoke of these restrictions, with their grave assault on free speech, as a positive: “Federal scientists may speak to the media and the public about scientific and technological matters based on their official work, with appropriate coordination with their immediate supervisor and their public affairs office.”
The administration apparently couldn’t resist the power this growing cultural norm takes from the public and gives to the powerful.
The statement may well have been the highest level endorsement to that point of this trend toward “Censorship through Public Information Office.” It took from public the right to hear what federal scientists are doing, and gave back just a little, under highly controlled circumstances.
The next March the AHCJ and SPJ presidents wrote in a Washington Post editorial: “Meanwhile, reporters’ questions often go unanswered. When replies are given, they frequently are more scripted than meaningful. Public employees generally are required to obtain permission to share their expertise, and when interviews are allowed, a media ‘handler’ is listening in to keep control over what is said.”
The controls continued to grow stronger.
Last spring the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, after fending off much reporting for many years, was telling its media staff to remember that just because reporters ask for interviews doesn’t mean they have to be allowed to talk to people. This after the agency had made deadly missteps as the pandemic built.
Now, in addition to the review wthin the Biden administration, the previously proposed Scientific Integrity Act, sponsored by Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) addressing some of the same issues, will likely be introduced again shortly.
Journalists will be there to testify to this abuse.
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