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