Why Is It Safe to Ban Federal Employees from Speaking to the Press with Monitoring?

Why is it safe for the federal government to have the current rules against employees speaking to the press without monitoring?

Is there any reason to think the rules serve the public better than free speech protections?

I sent a petition to the Biden Administration's Office of Science and Technology this week, asking their leadership to examine those questions before they simply follow the policies set by previous administrations.

Excerpts from the petition are below.

Dr. Alondra R. Nelson
Office of Science and Technology Policy

Dr. Francis Collins
Office of Science and Technology Policy

Dr. Nelson and Dr. Collins:

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Journalism organizations have written to you objecting to the Office of Science and Technology Policy’s endorsement of the restrictions.

I’m petitioning OSTP to look objectively at the rules and questions around them, rather than just assert that federal agencies and others are allowed to implement them, as has happened with the recent scientific integrity report and other policies. I’m asking for researched answers on this drastic shift in information flow to the public, not simply opinion or declarations of rights for people in leadership.

Below is the full list of questions I am asking OSTP to examine, with discussion.

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--Why is it safe for the federal government to have the current rules against employees speaking to the press without monitoring? On occasion some employees defy the rules, talk to journalists without the monitoring and bring us critical information. The fraud and poor regulation in generic drug industry was brought out in the book, “Bottle of Lies,” which author Katherine Eban said took 10 years to write because of the muzzling of government scientists. Why do we expect such abridgement of speech not to hide things?

--Is there any reason to think the rules serve the public better than free speech protections? Government leaders often cite facts such as a person not chosen by officials might say the wrong thing. That is completely true, but does not answer why controls on what so many people can say by a few people in leadership will lead to better outcomes overall.

--When and how did these restraints come about? A number of journalists remember first encountering them in the late 1980s or the 1990s, apparently as the public relations profession expanded. What do we know about their history and why they were adopted? Was there ever any public discussion or debate?

--Were they instrumental in hiding problems that resulted in a pandemic worse than it had to be? The CDC and FDA are sources of numerous complaints of blockages even after reporters ask permission to speak from public information offices.

--Why are they constitutional? The extensive legal analysis from The Brechner Center for Freedom of Information finds that these rules, although very common, are unconstitutional and that many courts have agreed with that. The longer version is a legal brief.

--Given the policies’ pervasiveness, have they moved us toward an authoritarian or otherwise unfree society? The Bureau of the Census and the Federal Communications Commission have these policies. Would they be used to keep an administration or political party in power?

Resources

--Yale Law School’s recent conference on access included “Censorship by PIO.”

--Attached to this email are excerpts from an interview with an FDA newsletter editor who used to report by walking the halls of FDA.

--The Society of Professional Journalists has said the controls are censorship and authoritarian.

--The Society of Professional Journalists has sponsored surveys showing the restraints are pervasive in federal, state, and local government, education, government science agencies and police departments.

--A recent webinar, “The Gagging of America,” from the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing, has a discussion with First Amendment Attorney Frank LoMonte on blockages in both the public and private sector.

--Last July, 25 journalism and other groups wrote to OSTP asking that the blockages be ended and that reporters be given credentials to enter facilities.

--Last year the Biden administration’s Environmental Protection Agency affirmed that it would continue these controls.

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Summaries of SPJ Surveys

SPJ sponsored seven surveys (2012 to 2016) that showed the censorship is pervasive in federal, state, and local government, education, government science agencies and police departments. 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.

Journalists Call for Biden Administration to Eliminate Limits on Reporters' Access to Federal Staff

The following press release went out from the Society of Professional Journalist on January 28.

The Society of Professional Journalists and Society of Environmental Journalists say a recent federal government report doesn’t go far enough in giving federal scientists the freedom to speak to journalists.

SPJ and SEJ sent a letter Wednesday to leaders of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy about the report, Protecting the Integrity of Government Science. The report lays out the Biden administration’s stance on ensuring scientific integrity in government.

The organizations praise the report for espousing as a fundamental principle that “federal scientists should be able to speak freely, if they wish, about their unclassified research, including to members of the press.”

But they point out that parts of the rest of the report undermine and effectively negate that principle by endorsing existing widespread agency policies and practices that specify media access to government scientists should be "in coordination with supervisors and public affairs officials." As a practical matter, that means interview and information requests are frequently delayed, inadequately responded to and often outright blocked.

“The majority of the report perpetuates the status quo and that just is not acceptable,” said Kathryn Foxhall, vice chair of the SPJ Freedom of Information Committee. “There was a time not that long ago when journalists could call up a scientist directly on the phone and ask questions or interview them for a story, and the scientist felt empowered to do the interview. But there are so many policies and procedures in place today that make that extremely difficult to do. It severely limits government transparency. It stops the flow of information from elected officials to the public. In turn, it’s the citizens of this country who are most harmed by it.”

SPJ and SEJ cite an example from July, when the chief of staff of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention emailed all employees in that office reminding them that they were not authorized to answer reporters’ questions directly and that all queries from journalists were to be referred to the press office. That email came in the wake of news that four EPA scientists in that office had filed a whistleblower complaint alleging managers had improperly watered down their chemical risk assessments.

“Having public information officers act as ‘gatekeepers’ for interview and information requests limits — and in many cases prevents — the flow of information to journalists and the citizens of this country,” said SPJ National President Rebecca Aguilar. “Instead, we’re given carefully written talking points that only support the agency’s position.

“I am proud of the work Kathryn and SPJ’s FOI Committee are doing on this issue and happy to have such a great partner in SEJ, who is as passionate about government transparency and the free flow of information as we are,” Aguilar continued.

The letter concludes, "Even though your report is final, we urge you to amend or supplement it by stating, in the clearest and strongest terms possible, that federal scientists need no one's permission to share their research or knowledge with journalists and the public. It's fine to ask them to voluntarily inform communications offices of such contacts, but they shouldn't be required to report them or fear being chastised or disciplined for not doing so. The American public deserves the full story from their government scientists and other staff, not a sanitized version that's filtered through a political or policy lens."