Report: NIH Officials Suppressed News about Fetal Tissue Cells

Last year under the Trump Administration, National Institutes of Health officials decided not to help publicize federally funded research that used fetal tissue cells, “calling it a political landmine,” according to a report in BuzzFeed News.

The news outlet had obtained emails among officials discussing the decision.

According to BuzzFeed, NIH representatives did not respond to requests for comment on the emails.

The article cited my discussion that agencies ban contact between staff and reporters without oversight and push out what they think is news: "Suppression of press alerts for political reasons is an illustration of what unconscionable conflict of interest runs through it all."

Report: Philadelphia School District Considering Forbidding 20,000 Staff from Talking to Media without Sign Off

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer,  the Philadelphia School District "is mulling a policy that would forbid any of its 20,000 employees from talking to the media unless staff from its central office signs off.”

The district spokesperson is quoted as saying this kind of policy is, “standard operating procedure for organizations everywhere.”

The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers president is quoted as saying it’s authoritarian.

Yale Law School Conference Hears: No Documented Case Has Upheld "No Interviews Policy"

At the Yale Law School Access and Accountability Conference last month, Frank LoMonte, director of the Brechner Center on Freedom of Information, said that, “There is no documented case in which a government agency has successfully defended a ‘no interviews’ policy,” controlling employees speaking to the press.

And yet, he said, the policies persist and are pervasive.

I said the current cultural trend supporting these policies is catastrophic. The videos of the conference, including the “Fighting Censorship by PIO” session (number 5) are here. The agenda is here and the background papers are here.

“Censorship by PIO” to Be a Focus of Major Meeting On Free Speech from Yale Law School

The issue of fighting “Censorship by PIO” will be one of the main topics at Yale Law School’s upcoming “Access & Accountability 2021: Seize the Day”  conference, October 1-2, by Zoom.

The Washington, D.C. Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists is highlighting that session particularly due to the group’s extensive work opposing the practice of offices and agencies banning employees from speaking to the press or prohibiting such contacts without notifying authorities, often through public information offices.

 Speakers will include Kathryn Foxhall, a board member of the SPJ chapter; Gregg Leslie, longtime free speech attorney from the Arizona State University; Michael Linhorst of Yale’s Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic; and Frank LoMonte, director of the Brechner Center for Freedom of Information.

 Foxhall said at a recent SPJ session that the prohibition against speaking with oversight, “is just deep corruption for people in power who institute these rules and corruption for journalists acquiesce to them. It’s the kind of corruption that gets us a public health structure that shows major problems when the crisis of many decades hits and leads to exacerbated problems.”

The opening speaker for the Yale conference will be Floyd Abrams, the well-known First Amendment attorney who won the landmark Supreme Court case on the Pentagon Papers.

The eight other sessions at the conference will be on:

---Thinking Big about Fixing FOIA.

---Rights of the Press Clause.

---Law Enforcement Accountability.

---National Security Accountability.

---Defamation as an Accountability Tool.

---Collaboration Colloquies—projects worthy of cross clinic collaboration, including: Supporting Local Journalism.

---Director’s Dialogue: First Amendment, Friend or Foe.

---Success Stories.

The conference is free, open to the public and on Zoom.

However, registration is required:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/access-and-accountability-2021-tickets-166964773131

 

 

 

 

 

SPJ Gives Honor for Work Opposing Restrictions on Reporters Through PIOs, etc.

Readers: Apologies for tooting my own horn here, but I did want to reflect how seriously SPJ takes the issue.

Press release, Sept. 4, from Society of Professional Journalists: 

Foxhall named Wells Key winner for work against controls on reporters through public information offices

INDIANAPOLIS -- The Society of Professional Journalists honors Kathryn Foxhall with the Wells Memorial Key. This award is the highest honor for an SPJ member and was officially presented tonight at the President’s Awards Ceremony during the SPJ21 conference. Foxhall was previously informed of her honor over Zoom by friends and colleagues.

“Thank you,” said Foxhall, a member of the SPJ Freedom of Information Committee.

“We now have over four million pandemic dead. For over two decades public health agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, have controlled public scrutiny of themselves. Reporters are kept out of buildings, not allowed to speak to anyone without the bosses’ censors, and often not allowed to speak to anyone at all,” Foxhall said.

“Psychologist Daniel Kahneman talks about the human bias of, ‘What you see is all there is.’ The press gets what it can and mostly does not tell the public about the controls, preferring to believe whatever we get is all there is,” Foxhall continued. “Now the nation finds our structures were not prepared for a vast crisis. The U.S. has lost life expectancy at a rate 8.5 times higher than the average of 16 other high-income nations.

“Similar controls have surged in state and local governments, police departments, schools, businesses and other entities, public and private. The restraints have become part of the culture,” she said. “This is deep corruption for both the people in power and the press. Freedom of expression is not just an ideal or a liberty. It’s how we cooperate, shield people from abuse and survive.”

Foxhall has been an active member of SPJ for nearly 12 years. Within that time, she has given many years of dedicated service to the Washington D.C., Pro Chapter and is one of its most active and participatory members.

Around 2009, she began communicating with SPJ about excessive controls over public information officers, an issue that received very little attention previously. Almost singlehandedly, she gradually convinced others of the great harm caused by employee gag policies and the fear-based censorship they create.

The PIO issue was on the FOI Committee’s meeting agenda at an SPJ conference the following year because of her as efforts. Other journalism organizations also took notice and began pushing back against the controls. She presented the issue and insisted the biggest need was for some research to document the extent of the problem.

From this, two surveys were conducted: one with Washington, D.C.-area reporters and another with members of the National Association of Government Communicators. This prompted a series of annual surveys – which were timed to be released during Sunshine Week – documenting the relationship between reporters and PIOs, showing how the situation has continually worsened.

Foxhall inspired initiatives during Sunshine Week, including a letter issued to the Obama administration, which resulted in an in-person meeting between SPJ and White House staff, a new webpage with resources, events at the National Press Club and more.

She has written extensively about the PIO problem and has been quoted in Quill, The Washington Post, Columbia Journalism Review and dozens of regional outlets. Foxhall has even created a committee dedicated solely to the issue through the D.C. chapter. Owing to her efforts, the Knight Columbia Institute made removing government-imposed gag orders its first “to-do” priority for the incoming Biden administration.

Foxhall is now working with SPJ Foundation Board member Frank LoMonte on identifying potential avenues for legal challenge to bring “test cases” that would clarify the First Amendment rights of employees to speak to journalists, and journalists’ rights to receive that information. She has been tireless in finding pro-bono legal representation for those brave enough to initiate legal challenges.

Friends and colleagues shared some of the many reasons for her nomination:

“Sometimes it takes just one person to lead the charge, to take the hits and confront doubt and apathy head on,” Former SPJ President David Cuillier said. “She did this well, and for that she deserves the Society’s highest honor.”

“And I cannot think of anyone else in SPJ who has devoted so much of their time and so much energy to an issue so important and so relevant to SPJ’s core principles,” Former SPJ President Carolyn S. Carlson said.

“The Wells Key can honor service to the SPJ over the preceding year or over a lifetime,” LoMonte said. “By either measure, Kathryn Foxhall is a worthy and deserving recipient. She is one of the die-hard true-believers keeping the mission of the SPJ alive in challenging times.”

SPJ promotes the free flow of information vital to informing citizens; works to inspire and educate the next generation of journalists; and fights to protect First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech and press. Support excellent journalism and fight for your right to know. Become a member, give to the Legal Defense Fund or give to the SPJ Foundation.

-END-

Asking Biden’s Science Work Group: Who Is Watching Agencies for Us?

Mean, Ugly Censorship:

Since reporters' contact with agencies is choked down, choked off and prohibited without oversight, who is watching these entities with so much power over our well-being? 

On July 28, I testified before the listening session of the Office of Science and Technology Policy on the restraints on reporters in federal agencies. The written version is below.

This came after 25 journalism and other groups wrote to OSTP calling for elimination of the bans on federal employees speaking to reporters without notifying authorities, including public information officers.

Written testimony: Over the last two to three decades agencies in the federal government, like entities elsewhere, have implemented rules that ban employees from speaking to journalists without notifying authorities, often by going through public information officers.

This means in essence that no word can pass without people in power controlling it.

President Biden has been in Washington long enough to have known the days before this was the case and to have seen the transition in the agencies and Congress.

It is mean, ugly censorship. It is pervasive, it is human rights abuse and it is successful. Control of information by people in power has been one of the most debilitating, deadly things in all human history.

You should have the letter that 25 journalism and other groups have signed opposing these restrictions.

I have worked with the Society of Professional Journalists on this, but this statement is mine alone.

Please understand in many agencies reporters can’t go into the building. They cannot get credentials to do so even though thousands of employees do. Everyone in the agency is forbidden to speak to them without going to the public information officers, who have been made into our censors. When the reporter goes through the permission-to-speak process, from everything we hear, most of the time they are not allowed to speak to the person requested. In HHS the request has to go up three levels in the hierarchy. People in agencies have hidden discussions on whether to allow the contact and on what can be discussed. People in high positions block any contact they don’t want to happen.

As a 40-year reporter, if there is one thing I can get you to focus on it is that after journalists get the story through official avenues, there is always, routinely, more to the story. And we, the entire public, are walking in mine fields with all the hazards people are silenced about.

I was editor of the American Public Health Association’s newspaper during the very dark early days of AIDS. That was years before the agencies began the censorship. No one necessarily knew which reporter talked to which employee. In just one example, a fairly-highly placed official at CDC educated me about some basics, on the condition that his name not be used. That could have been worth a million lives eventually, given that we were still early in the infection spread and I was writing for public health professionals.

In contrast, the official story I would otherwise have written was interesting, accurate and insidiously curated, devoid of even basic facts that tended not to support the administration’s policies.

Thankfully, sometimes staff members today defy the rules and speak to reporters outside official avenues. However, it happens much less often because most contacts are banned and there are the censors on conversations.

Officials say they need to coordinate the information and that it is dangerous to let people just talk: they might say the wrong thing.

Coordinating the official story may be a legitimate function for agencies and offices.

However, despite all our divisions in this country, nobody wants to be allowed to hear only the story officials coordinate for them.

Free speech can be problematic, sloppy and dangerous. It has never been as dangerous as mechanisms people in power can use to control information according to their own inclinations.

Questions for the workgroup and OSTP:

---Why is it necessary to have such controls on staff members when it was not in the past?

---Why should people in official positions be allowed to implement such blockages on contacts?

---How do you know enough about the workings and character of agencies like CDC, NIH, FDA or EPA? How does anyone have a sufficient overview when the agencies control public scrutiny of themselves? Are there any independent persons watching for any of us, since the press is not there?

---Why would an agency with so little oversight not develop serious corrosion? What do we know about that? Why are we taking the risk?

---Since we know about these restrictions what responsibility do we have to the human lives that depend on these agencies?

25 Groups Ask for End to Restrictions on Reporters in Federal Agencies

RELEASE FROM SPJ:

The Society of Professional Journalists and 24 other journalism groups sent a letter Monday to the White House to request a discussion about protecting against interference in journalists’ work.

The organizations that signed the letter represent thousands of journalists across the country. They request a meeting with the White House Scientific Integrity Task Force to discuss crucial ways to protect against federal interference in journalists’ important work.

“Journalists everywhere seek timely and honest answers from government agencies on behalf of the public,” said SPJ National President Matthew T. Hall. “But all too often, journalists’ jobs are intentionally hindered by government officials in a variety of ways, but most commonly by barring government experts from speaking with reporters or blatantly refusing interviews. The federal government is for the people, and the people deserve to have their questions answered.”

"It is imperative that federal agencies be responsive and open to reporters who are seeking the truth in the public's best interest," said SEJ President Sadie Babits. "This is fundamental to our democracy. That's why we, along with dozens of other journalism organizations, ask that federal employees, scientists in many cases, be allowed to speak openly and freely to members of the press."

The barriers to obtaining accurate and authoritative information are now widespread, the letter states, prompting dozens of groups to call for change in letters to Congress and past presidential administrations.

A comprehensive analysis by First Amendment attorney Frank LoMonte found that existing controls are unconstitutional. Seven surveys from 2012 to 2016 have shown controls have become common at federal, state and local levels, in health, education, environment and science, and — perhaps most chillingly — in police departments where information has become increasingly important to ensure all members of the public are treated equitably.

The groups say in the letter that they would like to see the task force recommend agencies
—eliminate restrictions on employees speaking to reporters without notification of authorities, especially before but also after the contact;
—credential journalists to enter, without escort, any area of federal facilities where most employees are allowed to enter;
—and make it standard policy that when reporters voluntarily contact public information offices, they are allowed to speak to the people they request.

“These changes would eliminate restrictions and policies that have become pervasive in federal agencies but that are relatively new,” the letter states. “For much of President Joe Biden’s Washington career they were either nonexistent or not nearly as stringent. Sadly, they have now become the norm.”

“Government transparency is so important, and while the average citizen doesn’t have time to keep tabs on every decision agencies make that impacts people’s lives, journalists do,” Hall said. “It’s time we accept that journalists are the watchdogs of government and are asking questions and reporting information on behalf of the American people – as the First Amendment intended.”

Virus Origins: So Many U.S. Scientists Can't Speak to Reporters

To the Washington Post

RE: “Scientists battle over the ultimate origin story: Where did the coronavirus come from:” The world is seriously hampered in its effort to understand the origins of SARS-CoV-2 by the censorship of scientists and others in the United States. It is apocalyptically immoral.

Over the last two to three decades there has been a surge in restrictions by employers banning employees from ever speaking to journalists without notifying the authorities, often through public information officers.

This minder/censor system has an overwhelming tendency to silence people about anything that doesn’t fit the official story. Beyond that so many burdens and delays are placed on contacts using that chokepoint that often employees and reporters are never able to speak.

Surveys have found the restrictions are pervasive many types of workplaces. In the federal government, including science agencies, the constraints are ferocious. These include the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Food and Drug Administration. This is in face of the fact that journalists routinely prove that many times the only way facts and perspectives emerge is through conversations with reporters. Sometimes those critical contacts must be confidential, without the knowledge of the bosses or their minions.

Unfortunately, there are stories we don’t get for years, if ever.

In 2019 negotiations in the House Science, Space and Technology Committee killed a proposal that would have allowed scientists, only, a little freedom to speak without censors. In 2020, as Covid deaths began to mount, CDC officials stressed to its media staff that it was not necessary to let any particular reporter speak to the person requested, no matter how persistent the request.

Thousands of scientists are effectively silenced as we round four million deaths worldwide: How can we go on with this?

SPJ surveys, etc. Public information officers - Society of Professional Journalists (spj.org)

CDC head answers journalism group. SPJ chapter calls for dialogue with agency about restraints on reporting

The following went out today, following an email reply from the CDC director to the SPJ DC chapter. 

Washington, D.C. – The Society of Professional Journalists has long worked to improve the access of reporters to officials within government agencies, in particular the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Washington, D.C. Professional Chapter of SPJ recently reached out to new CDC Director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, urging her agency to grant greater access within the agency to reporters. The SPJ chapter is encouraged by Walensky’s initial response and believes this topic requires further dialogue.

SPJ-DC wrote to Walensky in February, stating that “restrictions on staff speaking to reporters without notifying authorities amount to a human rights abuse, withholding critical perspective from the public and from health professionals. In the case of the national emergency created by the COVID-19 pandemic, restricting journalists’ access to vital information collected for the public has cost lives unnecessarily and has created untold health consequences for many of those who have managed to survive.”

Walensky has responded to SPJ-DC in an encouraging manner, indicating that CDC shares SPJ’s desire for openness.

“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is committed to a culture of openness that values the free exchange of ideas, data, and information as part of scientific and technical inquiry,” Walensky wrote. “I am committed to these values. We strive to provide science-based, transparent, accurate, and timely information to the media, as well as through our website, social media channels, and other communication mechanisms.”

“CDC scientists and researchers communicate with members of the press about their work. However, CDC experts are working scientists and are not always available for interviews. Our press officers serve as points of contacts for news media to provide relevant background information and to ensure questions are answered in a timely manner,” Walensky said. “CDC will continue to deliver to the public the best, most accurate, and trusted public health information.”

Although SPJ-DC is concerned that Walensky reiterated her desire for public information officers within CDC to continue to control access to scientists and officials within the agency, the journalism organization welcomes this response from Walensky.

SPJ-DC looks forward to having an on-going dialogue with Walensky and other officials at CDC about the important issues of reporters’ access and the public’s right to know.

ACLU Chapter Using Speech Restrictions with Staff

We have known for some time that the bans at many agencies or groups on staff talking to the press without notifying the authorities are just about a cultural norm.

They seem to be everywhere. Surveys sponsored by the Society of Professional Journalists have shown them to be pervasive in arenas including education, science, various levels of government and law enforcement.

In one of the strongest endorsements of censorship in the 21st Century, many news outlets have these restrictions on their staff.

But a chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union? Reporter Haisten Willis ran into that very thing in Georgia last year and now reports on it.

In a new twist on the restrictions, staff are apparently prohibited from giving journalist their business cards.

Biden's EPA Officials: Contact Between Reporters and Staff Still Banned without Controls

Will the Biden administration’s Environmental Protection Agency continue the bans on any contacts between reporters and staff without notification or oversight by authorities, such as public information officers?

Yes, was answer from the new EPA public affairs leaders in a March 18 Zoom session sponsored by the Society of Environmental Journalists. They also indicated that the agency will not force any staff members to talk to the press if they are not comfortable doing it.

Tim Wheeler, chair of the SEJ Freedom of Information Task Force, told the officials there was a time, “when EPA scientists and other staff were often, if not routinely, allowed to talk directly to reporters without needing to get press office permission or to have minders present to monitor the interview. Can we go back to that? If not, why not?”

Lindsay Hamilton, the new EPA Associate Administrator of Public Affairs, said she would debate the word “minder,” saying it is the role of the media relations professional to get the reporter connected to the right person, to facilitate that interview, to make sure the source people feel comfortable in talking to the journalist, to take notes, to occasionally flag time, and to follow up with the reporter.

Also at the session was Nick Conger, the new EPA Press Secretary.

Hamilton said, “We do, you know, look for coordination with the Office of Public Affairs, [when a reporter asks to speak to someone] because I think that in terms of ensuring that we’re having good, accurate information, that’s getting out into the public, I think there’s a role for us to play. And in coordinating that and for having a high level of awareness about how the agency’s communicating.”

At a later point Hamilton said, “We do ask for coordination and I don't want to deny that in any way. So, I do think that they expect that they are supposed to coordinate with the Office of Public Affairs.”

She further said, “If they're going to check in and say, ‘Hey, you know, we're talking to this reporter, have you heard about the story yet?’ That’s the kind of thing that’s like really standard to our day-to-day work. I certainly kind of hope that folks want to work with us, right?”

“My goal is to make it so that people want to coordinate with us because they know that the outcome is an interview situation which they're going to feel comfortable and confident and be able to deliver information in which EPA is delivering the best available experts, the best available information for that story,” Hamilton said.

Reporters Talking about Responses and Nonresponses

Journalists listening to the session sent questions and comments.

· One reporter said they got a written response on deadline from a scientist with her name attached and was “giddy.”

· Another reporter said they were denied a request for an interview but were told answers would come “by Friday.” It did not happen. The press office asked if it would be okay to get a response a few days later, but it had not come by the time of the session.

· Another said, “I contacted the regional office twice in the last two months by email. No answer.”

· Yet another reporter said, “EPA hasn't granted me an on-the-record interview since Obama was in office and even then it was a fight.”

Hamilton said they are trying to work through the deadlines coming at them all the time, but they would like to hear about these problems. She said there will be times the agency will ask to get back to the reporter in writing, rather than granting an interview, because that is how they need to share information.

Scientific Integrity Review Targeting These Questions

Wheeler noted that President Biden, in his mandate for a task force to review scientific integrity in the federal government, has called for identifying effective practices for engagement of Federal scientists with news media and on social media. Wheeler asked if that meant agency scientists and science advisory board members would need press office okay to talk to a reporter or to have a press office person present.

Hamilton said she did not know yet, but there would be more coming on the topic soon.

Lack of Written Policy on the Controls

Asked if there is a written policy on when scientists will be available to reporters, Hamilton said that there has been broad guidance saying, “Please coordinate communications with the Office of Public Affairs.” However, she said she was not aware of any further prescriptive policy.

Permission to Speak at Sessions

Wheeler noted that in prior times a reporter could walk up to a scientist at a meeting or a press conference, speak to them and get answers on the spot. He asked if that will be possible under this administration.

Hamilton said, “They are in an on-the-record situation already. So, yeah. Absolutely.”

She added, “I will say sometimes if I'm a press person who's onsite, I will sometimes go and join a conversation like that, in part to make sure I know who the reporter is, where they're from.”

“We do like to know what people are saying about the agency to see the coverage that results in the things were are doing,” she said.

Federal Agency Coordination on Interview Policies

Bobby Magill, an SEJ board member asked, “How much coordination is there amongst federal agencies on press strategy, especially regarding press officers responding to reporter inquiries and granting reporters, access to agency staff?”

Conger answered, “Yes, we are coordinating. We do a weekly call with other agencies that kind of touch the same issues that we do….But we are in regular close coordination with our counterparts at other agencies.”

He also said, “This is very much coming down from the top, from the White House in terms of the transparency and the access, the professionalism and civility that we have committed to restoring in terms of our interactions with the press corps.”

Appointment and Visitor Logs

The officials were asked if the appointment and visitor logs of the administrator and other top EPA officials be made public? Hamilton said it was the first time she had been asked that, but she would look into it.

Staff Just Don’t Have to Answer

Wheeler said some reporters say they have tried to speak to scientists in the pesticide division and had been denied interviews. He asked if the officials could commit to allowing those interviews.

Hamilton said she would look into it, but every interview is individual.

“There are going to be people who don't want to talk to the media and we are not going to make them. We will certainly try to get you information, but it doesn't mean that every person is going to be comfortable with always giving interviews to the media.”

She added, “We tend to be pretty respectful of people’s wishes and how they use their time and how they use their voice.”

She said, “Obviously we want to give you access to their information, their publications, answers to your questions, but it doesn't mean that everyone we work with is always comfortable with doing an interview in every situation themselves.”

“If it's things that then will kind of lead into things that are in process….it might be premature to give interviews sometimes,” Hamilton said.

Conger said, in regard to issues in the past, “The idea that a scientist can’t talk because what he or she might say is contrary to the political decisions, that’s something that we’re mindful of. That was a problem. And we're serious about addressing moving forward.”

A reporter told the officials that staff people have spent years being punished for talking directly to the press. The attitude of avoiding the media is going to be tough to shift, the indication was.

Hamilton said she understood the concern and would be working with career employees and others.

Public Affairs Contacts

In response to one request Hamilton said the agency intended to quickly put online the list of press office contacts.

Mandated Anonymous Spokespersons

Wheeler asked, in cases when reporters do get answers from the press office, “Can we do away with the all-too-common practice of being told to attribute that information to an anonymous spokesperson?”

Conger said, in general, yes. However, he said, “We have learned that there are some folks who don't feel comfortable having their names associated with the statements. And that’s in part because it's not their information. They're getting it from three or four or five different people from across the EPA. And sometimes they don't feel like it’s actually coming from them. Sometimes they don't feel comfortable associating their name with that topic area….Sometimes it can be very political in nature. So we are hearing them out.”

He said, however, there are two political lead public affairs officers, Hamilton and himself: “So if it’s of a concern to a reporter….I think we're generally deferring….to putting our names against the statement.”

Hamilton said it was something she would like to hear more about: “I'm not quite sure what the differentiation is so long as it’s a spokesperson or a spokesperson with a name.”

 

Where Are We in History When the Communications Controllers Block Reporting on Themselves?

The Federal Communications Commission is holding “sharply reduced and fewer public press briefings” reflecting, “a decades long and gradual reduction in availability in commission officials to reporters,” says a recent report in Communications Daily.

The article notes: “When the chair speaks with journalists as a group, reporters are barred from asking more than one question or asking a follow-up query.”

FCC regulates interstate and international communications through cable, radio, television, satellite and wire.

Its website states it is, “responsible for managing and licensing the electromagnetic spectrum for commercial users and for non-commercial users including: state, county and local governments. This includes public safety, commercial and non-commercial fixed and mobile wireless services, broadcast television and radio, satellite and other services. In licensing the spectrum, the Commission promotes efficient and reliable access to the spectrum for a variety of innovative uses as well as promotes public safety and emergency response.”

Recent issues the agency has dealt with include net neutrality; preventing tech companies for putting users’ privacy at risk; ensuring schools access to internet services; and national security threats from technology companies of other countries.

FCC’s Lifeline program provides discounts for phone and internet service for low-income consumers.

The authors of the Communications Daily report say, “Starting under the George W. Bush administration, most FCC officials say they cannot answer reporters’ questions –- even off the record -– without involving officials from the agency who are mainly political appointees and who handle public relations. FCC PR people rarely allow such interviews.”

My summary of this: Like so many other public agencies around the nation, the FCC first created a choke point through which all newsgathering must be done. Then it eliminated most scrutiny of the agency by the press, since journalists have no alternative avenues. The public is getting a lot of officially controlled information and isn’t informed that serious reporting on the agency is not allowed.

All the Facilities Media Can't Enter, But Don't Mention

To Erik Wemple
Media Reporter
The Washington Post

Erik,

We, the media, are galloping insane.

The media report they can’t get into the facilities for child migrants on the border.

We also, by and large, can’t get into the Department of Health and Human Services building, sitting within sight of the Capitol. That is where many policies or orders--humane, inhumane or indefensible--are formed or are known about, at least. Those include policies about child migrants.

The same is true of many other federal agencies.

The media can’t contact people in HHS or other agencies—by written policy—without oversight by the authorities, often through the public information office.

In reality, the media often can’t speak to people they request at all.

In unknown confabs, in these agencies we aren’t in and can’t get to know anybody in, decisions are made about who in the media may talk to someone.

The same has been true for years, including the time building up to the 2018 policy separating children from families.

The media wait until there is a humanitarian wreck at the border to prove how protective we are of the free press.

HHS, et.al., still sit here in Washington, still locked up.

The media are misleading and negligent.

Kathryn Foxhall

The Press Wasn't Really There. And Still Isn't.

The following column was drafted by me and offered by the Society of Professional Journalists as content during Sunshine Week. At least 23 news outlets around the country picked it up.

INDIANAPOLIS — For many years before the COVID-19 pandemic, journalists “weren’t there,” to a huge extent, in terms of reporting on the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The controls keeping them out continue.

Reporters cannot enter the facilities except under controlled circumstances like official meetings. There are no credentials to allow reporters to enter, although journalists could be vetted as easily as the thousands of employees are. The rules force reporters to go through public information offices to seek permission to speak to anyone. In reality, reporters are often never allowed to speak to the people they want at all.

Last year Donald McNeil, Jr., then a New York Times reporter, said that even under the Obama administration CDC had to clear anything important through its parent agency, the Department of Health and Human Services. But under the Trump administration, he said, “If you don’t talk to people off the record, you don’t talk to anyone because nobody is being allowed to say anything on the record,” unless it is cleared through various layers, sometimes including the White House.

Having a former New York Times reporter confirm it is good, because many other reporters say the same.

Christina Jewett won awards for her 2019 Kaiser Health News series that found FDA had for nearly 20 years, “let medical device companies file reports of injuries and malfunctions outside a widely scrutinized public database, which leave doctors and medical sleuths in the dark.” Over the six months she worked on the story, FDA never allowed Jewett to speak to a subject matter expert. She built the story through Freedom of Information Act-obtained documents and interviews with people outside the agency.

In the first months of the pandemic after CDC had already made stumbles that cost lives, a CDC official made it plain how things work, telling the agency’s media staff, “Just because there are outstanding [press] requests or folks keep getting asked to do a particular interview does not mean it has to be fulfilled.”

I have harsh questions for the press: Why, with tens of thousands of people in these institutions silenced, do we believe we are getting even half the story? Why are we implying that the public should entrust millions of lives to agencies when it is impossible to really know them? Why do we trust authorities who use their power to control public scrutiny of themselves?

Understand, among other things, reporters have heard for years the tales of behind-the-scenes controls, limitations on what may be discussed, and the “slow-rolling” that happens after a reporter makes a plea to speak to someone.

For the 25 to 30 years that these controls have surged, starting with the restrictions against employees speaking to journalists without oversight, news outlets have said little about them, certainly not explaining them in each article they impact. We cling to our traditional work ethic that says people will always try to stop us and good reporters get the story anyway.

Frequently, the reality is somewhat the reverse: journalists get stuff — some of it quite impressive, mind you — and then we deem whatever we get to be THE story.

Despite journalists’ dictum that skepticism is critical to our work, we have our own conflict of interest with being too skeptical: we need to publish stories and they need to be credible. So when FDA or CDC, with all their authority, pushes out a briefing or statement or allows an interview, that is a valuable resource to us. We want to publish it, basically. We don’t want to think about the fact that all the staff around that situation is silenced, so who can know what the real story is? We certainly don’t want to explain that to our audiences.

We also don’t want to contemplate the likelihood that if the authorities did not block us from walking around or calling around the agency, someone would tip us off to important stories that currently go unmentioned.

FDA and CDC happen to be salient, frightening examples at this moment.

In reality, the controls on reporters talking to people and doing newsgathering have become a pervasive norm through our culture. The Society of Professional Journalists did seven surveys (2012–2016) that show the restrictions have become common and often intense in federal, state and local governments, in education and science, and in police departments. One local editor told me last fall that the PIO system, along with the lack of resources, has been the death of local journalism. Other editors just said the controls have become much tighter over the years.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on March 1 that Chester County, Pennsylvania, has written into its ethics code prohibitions against employees speaking about almost anything related to their job to anybody, including friends, family or press. Later coverage said the officials, after being criticized, planned to modify the policy, but still leave it restrictive.

This deep, long term trend is a recipe for corrosion, perhaps related to or underlying the general decline in democracy. Journalists are morally obligated to find ways to oppose it. The first way, of course, is to explain it to the public, just like any other corruption, and to report on it repeatedly as it continues to be a factor.

It’s also imperative that we fight these restrictions on the policy level, for the sake of protecting people. Frank LoMonte, head of the Brechner Center, says journalists can fight the restrictions in court. We also need to continuously tell legislators and other policymakers that the controls are making us all subordinate to insiders.

There are, after all, grave consequences to the press not being allowed in the CDC, FDA or other entities that impact the public.

CDC Should End Censorship on Journalists, Says D.C. Chapter of SPJ

The following release went out from the Washington, D.C. Chapter from the Society of Professional Journalists this afternoon:

 The SPJ DC Pro Chapter wrote Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, saying restrictions on staff speaking to reporters without notifying authorities amount to a human rights abuse, withholding critical perspective from the public and from health professionals. In the case of the national emergency created by the COVID-19 pandemic, restricting journalists' access to vital information collected for the public has cost lives unnecessarily and has created untold health consequences for many of those who have managed to survive.

 The practice of prohibiting employees from speaking to reporters, or prohibiting such contact without oversight by authorities, has become widespread in public and private entities. Coalitions of over 60 groups have opposed the restrictions in letters to the Obama and Trump administrations and to Congress. An analysis by First Amendment attorney Frank LoMonte says that the controls are unconstitutional and that many courts have said that.

 Randy Showstack, president of the SPJ DC Pro Chapter, said, “The practice of agencies closing doors and gagging people from speaking to the press has become an unfortunate cultural norm. The controls are just as dangerous as censorship is in the rest of the world.”

 At least four major organizations have asked President Joe Biden to end the restrictions in federal agencies. The Society of Professional Journalists, parent to the SPJ DC Pro Chapter, has told President Biden that it is negligence to expect that agencies that control public scrutiny of themselves will not develop critical weaknesses.

 The full letter to Dr. Walensky, along with resources, is below. 

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Dr. Rochelle Walensky
Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

 Dr. Walensky:

Congratulations on your appointment as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We appreciate the great challenges you face.

We are local leaders in an organization of journalists, the Society of Professional Journalists, dedicated to seeking truth and reporting it in an ethical manner. We are writing you today to ask that you end the CDC’s practice of censoring journalists trying to speak with agency staff about vital information they have collected, paid for by taxpayers. It is a violation of human rights and medical ethics and a constant threat to public health.

 Censorship, which is control of information by people in power, has always been one of the deadliest and most corrosive phenomena in human civil society.

Over the last 25-30 years a cultural norm of heavy censorship has surged in this country with public and private entities banning employees and others from communicating with reporters without permission or oversight by authorities, often by using public information officers as gatekeepers.

The mandate to never have contact without going through the permission process creates a chokepoint for controlling information flow. Then additional barriers are piled on including massive delays, hidden limits on what staff people may say and, often, no permission to speak at all. The applications to speak often must go through multiple layers of clearance.

This has been an appallingly serious problem at CDC for many years, with numerous reporters complaining of serious difficulties in speaking to anyone or not being allowed to speak to anyone at all.

An illustration of how dangerously repressive attitudes inside agencies can become happened last year when CDC officials told media staff, “Just because there are outstanding [press] requests or folks keep getting asked to do a particular interview does not mean it has to be fulfilled.”

The SPJ, the largest broad-based organization of journalists in the United States has written to President Biden saying, “It is deep negligence to expect that agencies that control the public scrutiny of themselves will not develop critical weaknesses or that they will not be subjected to political interference.”

SPJ also says it believes the nation is suffering the consequences of these controls during the COVID-19 pandemic.

We are writing for the Washington, D.C., Pro Chapter of SPJ, a group with many years of experience reporting on the federal establishment.

Journalists are the eyes and ears of the public. It is not possible for the agency to have such restrictions on journalists without withholding a great deal of information that belongs to the public and is about things that impact people’s health.

Much of what we know about CDC in this pandemic has been obtained by good reporting with agency employees serving as confidential sources. The SPJ DC Pro Chapter takes pride in this work by the Fourth Estate. We also are forever grateful to agency employees who risk so much to give the public vital information.

And yet, those contacts were forbidden. And with 10,000-plus CDC employees working under harsh prohibitions to never speak to a reporter without notifying the authorities, we know there is a great deal not being said. That is a grave risk to everyone on earth.

Please note that an extensive analysis by First Amendment attorney Frank LoMonte, Director of the Brechner Center, says that the controls are unconstitutional. It also says many courts have said that they are.

He says, “Decades’ worth of First Amendment caselaw establishes that public employees have a constitutionally protected right to speak about work-related matters without needing their employer’s permission. Policies and regulations that require pre-approval before government employees can discuss their work with the news media are invariably struck down as unconstitutional when challenged. Still, agencies persist in enforcing rules curtailing public employees’ ability to share information with journalists.”

Resources and background information are below.

We hope to be able talk to you or your staff soon.

Sincerely

Randy Showstack
President,
SPJ DC Pro Chapter

Kathryn Foxhall
Recording Secretary,
SPJ DC Pro Chapter
kfoxhall@verizon.net
(202) 417 4572

 

 Background

The “Censorship by PIO” restrictions on reporters on the federal level began to be noticeable, as far as some journalists can tell, in the early to mid-1990s. Agencies and other offices banned federal staff from ever speaking to reporters without being overseen by the authorities, usually PIOs.

SPJ did seven surveys (2012–2016) that show the controls had become common and often intense on federal, state and local levels, in education and science, and--perhaps most chillingly--in police departments. (A summary is below.) Coalitions of journalism and open government groups wrote to the Obama and Trump administrations calling for an end to the constraints.

Representatives from a coalition of over 50 groups met with Obama White House officials in 2015.  We told press officer Josh Earnest that often when the press does not know something about agencies, the administration leaders don’t either. We were promised an answer and it never came.

For many years before the pandemic, reporters have not usually been able speak to anyone in CDC and FDA without involving the PIO/censors. Often reporters are completely blocked from speaking to the people they request or to anyone at all.

 

Resources on “Censorship by PIO”

 • SPJ’s website on the issue gives background. It includes the seven surveys SPJ sponsored from 2012-2016.

• PROfficeCensorship: Kathryn Foxhall’s blog has stories and links on the issue.

• In the Washington Post Margaret Sullivan’s column looked at the issue.

• A Columbia Journalism Review article connects the long history of these controls with current circumstances, such as the CDC being terrifyingly absent. 

• 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 minute 32.54.  The site includes a transcript.

• The Knight Institute at Columbia University released documents on CDC’s policies on employee speech.

 • On Oct. 17, 2019, the House Science Space and Technology Committee voted to kill proposed provisions that would have given federal scientists the right to speak to reporters without prior permission from the authorities in their agencies. Science Magazine reported on the mark-up. The vote shows how deep the cultural norm is.

• In its 2019 resolution on the issue, SPJ said the constraints are authoritarian and the public has a right to be dubious of statements from organizations in which employees can’t speak without guards.

• On Nov. 6, 2019, SPJ and 28 other journalism and open government groups sent a letter to every member of Congress calling for support of unimpeded communication with journalists for all federal employees.

• Katherine Eban’s 2019 book “Bottle of Lies,” a jaw-dropping look at FDA failure, is on several “best books” lists. When the MedPage editorial (above) came out, Eban said this muzzling of government scientists was the reason it took 10 years to write the book.

• The book “Censored 2020,” published in 2019 has an article noting, “Everyone in those agencies is thus silenced today. So, if there are areas the FDA still didn’t clean up or if CDC staff are still playing games with anthrax, we likely won’t find out.” (attached)

 

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CDC Tells Media: We Tell You Who to Talk To

Notice on the CDC Website: From FAQ for Reporters

“Why is it necessary to go through a press officer when I want to talk with a CDC expert?

“Press officers are here to make sure your questions get answered by the best spokesperson for your story, within your deadline. CDC experts are working scientists and may not be available for interviews at all times. A press officer can help you find the best expert or spokesperson to answer your questions.”

 

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Media Relations Handbook for Government, Associations, Nonprofits and Elected Officials

The last edition listed is 2012.

 From the blub on Amazon:

By Bradford Fitch, Editor: Jack Holt. The Media Relations Handbook is called "the big blue book" on Capitol Hill.

From chapter nine:

About President George W. Bush’s team: “The key to the success was instilling a mentality (and fear) in the administration that information would flow only through approved channels.  From the campaign and into their installation in power, the Bush White House established a regimented communication policy—they built a wall that no leak could seep through.

Reporters decry these closed-mouth operations, as they often result in only the sanitized, organizationally endorsed message being released to the public. And sometimes this penchant for secrecy can lead to dangerous misjudgments and abuses of power. But public policy groups and public figures have a right to determine their own fate and to articulate their own messages

 

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Summaries of SPJ Surveys and History

SPJ sponsored seven surveys (2012 to 2016) that showed the censorship is pervasive. Seven of 10 federal-level journalists said they consider the government controls over who they interview a form of censorship. Forty percent of federal PIOs admit to blocking specific reporters because of past “problems” with their stories. Seventy-eight percent of political and general assignment reporters at the state and local level say the public is not getting the information it needs because of barriers to reporting.

Fifty-six percent of police reporters said rarely or never can they interview police officers without involving a PIO. Asked why they monitor interviews, some police PIOs said things like: “To ensure the interviews stay within the parameters that we want.”

Almost half of science writers said they were blocked from interviewing agency employees in a timely manner at least sometimes. Fifty-seven percent said the public is not getting all the information it needs because of barriers to reporting.

Biden Starts Scientific Integrity Review: Will He Keep the Censors on Feds?

President Joe Biden has issued a memorandum on scientific integrity calling for an interagency task force of the National Science and Technology Council to review the effectiveness of agency scientific integrity policies developed over the last 12 years. This builds on President Barack Obama’s scientific integrity memoranda of 2009 and 2010.

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.