Asking the NYT about the Ethics of Reporting Under The "Censorship by PIO"

A few weeks ago I wrote the New York Times, asking about the ethics of reporting under the “Censorship by PIO,” without openly opposing the constraints or directly informing the public about them.

The NYT Director of Communications responded saying they could not accommodate it at this time.

In the letter I said one consequence of the constraints is, “that when the pandemic bore down most reporters had not usually talked to staff in CDC, FDA, etc., without a PIO/censor for many years. Often reporters are completely blocked from talking to the persons they request. For many agencies, reporters cannot enter the building without escort, meaning usually they can’t enter. There is no system for credentialing to allow them to enter.”

My questions included:

---Is it a credible idea that our inability to talk to 10,000 plus people at CDC, for example, does not keep information from the public? Does anything in history indicate such situations will not hide disasters?

---Why is the press taking the risk?

---Journalists have many skills and techniques. Sometimes inside people defy the rules and talk to them. Reporters “get stuff.” They develop impressive stories that push the envelope of what is known. They relentlessly hew to the belief that, “Good reporters get the story anyway.” Does any of that mean we are not missing whole universes of facts and perspectives due to all these silenced people? Is the fact we do get stuff our only justification for working under these restraints?

---Looking at the impressive stories some of your reporters do, would those same excellent reporters not have their socks knocked off if they could walk or call around agencies and talk to people without minders?

Webinar on Constraints on Staff Speech: Slam Dunk Not Legal, Says First Amendment Attorney

The Society of Professional Journalists’ webinar on censorship and obstruction through media relations offices is up on YouTube.

Among others, it features First Amendment attorney Frank LoMonte, who say the rules prohibiting employees from speaking to the media without permission are a pervasive problem and one that is not legal.

He said many journalists tell him that, with interference from public affairs offices, reporters never get to the front line expert. They get handed off to somebody who is handpicked, “probably somebody who was compliant with the agency’s message and was not a dissenter or a troublemaker or a complainer, somebody who was going to toe the agency’s party line.”

Or they got a canned release, said LoMonte.

He said, “We can say with a high degree of confidence, a slam dunk degree of confidence, that it is not legal for a public agency to maintain a policy that says that employees will suffer some kind of retaliation or reprisal or punishment if they are caught talking to the news media without approval.

“It is just overwhelmingly the case that every federal court that has been asked this question has come down the same way and it has been true for many, many decades.”

The courts have also said, LoMonte stressed, that journalists have the legal standing to bring challenges against these rules.

He said he encouraged news organizations and groups like SPJ to look for what are the most blatantly unconstitutional gag policies out there and, “Let’s find ways to take them on.”

LoMonte also said the Brechner Center, which he heads, will issue a report this summer on the similar rules that silence college athletes.

SPJ Webinar May 5 Will Look at Censorship through Media Relations

The Society of Professional Journalists will hold a webinar to look at the controls on journalists including forcing reporters to go through public information officers to speak to anyone, May 5 at 2 p.m.

First Amendment Attorney Frank LoMonte will speak on his extensive analysis that finds controls on employees talking to the press are unconstitutional and many courts have so. 

Kathryn Foxhall, SPJ Freedom of Information Committee member, will talk about journalism ethics in a time when agencies in charge of preventing catastrophes greatly block press scrutiny they don’t control.

Paul Fletcher, Editor of the Virginia Lawyers Weekly and head of the SPJ FOI Committee, will talk about practicalities of dealing with the roadblocks.

A link for registration is below. Recent news coverage is below that.

https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_5fZtlBOCSU65glps

RESOURCES

• Washington Post Media columnist Margaret Sullivan did a piece on the PIO/media relations controls. She cites reporter’s memories of covering agencies over the last two to three decades: “Direct contact was minimized and tightly monitored. Interviews might take place with a public-relations ‘minder’ present.”

• A Columbia Journalism Review article connects the long history of these controls with current circumstances, with among other things, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention being terrifyingly absent from public view.

• Editorial in MedPage Today: “You Think China Has A COVID-19 Censorship Problem? We Aren’t Much Better.”

• Radio interview on “Clearing the Fog,” April 6. “Another Method of Censorship: Media Minders.” Media Minders portion of the show begins at about 32.54.  The site includes a transcript.

• SPJ’s website on the issue gives background. SPJ, other journalism and open government groups have been speaking out against the controls for a decade.