The following are excerpts from a letter I sent repeatedly to editors at the Washington Post, The New York Times, Science and Scientific American. I have received only inconsequential replies.
The discussion is about the restraints
on reporting, which often start with banning an organization’s staff from
speaking to journalists without going through PIOs.
After
years of work on this issue, I contend these systems, grown up over decades,
are abusive, lethal corruption of the institutions of power, but also of the
press. They are one of the prime causes of the pandemic failures and they are
readying us for failures elsewhere. Some history is in my Columbia Journalism
Review article.
I’d like
to make this an open letter and I’m requesting your answers on my questions
below.
Very
importantly, a former CDC media relations head, probably as close a witness to
this development as anyone, says
that the controls tightened over decades because there was no push back; that
they are very political; and that they have been successful in suppressing
information.
CDC is
only one salient example. These controls now exist from Congressional offices
and most the federal establishment down to local police departments.
The
opposition work against this has gone on for some time. The
Society of Professional Journalists has said the controls are censorship
and authoritarian. The extensive legal analysis
from The Brechner Center for Freedom of Information found that these constraints, though very common,
are unconstitutional and many courts have agreed with that. (The longer version
is a legal
article.) Among many other
communications over years, 25 journalism and other groups wrote to the Biden
Administration calling for elimination of such restrictions in the federal
government. Journalism groups FOI officers told the New York Times the press should be openly fighting
these controls.
Many
journalists’ answers to this situation are along the lines that reporters work
hard, are highly skilled and have some contacts who will talk to them. However,
that does not tell us what proportion of critical issues we understand. It does
add perspective to notice how many serious problems come to light only after
they have existed for a long time.
Despite
some very impressive journalism in your publications, all journalists are
missing stories and parts of the stories because most people around the
situations are successfully blocked from talking, even after the stories are
published.
My
questions include:
---Why
isn’t this historically hazardous? Why wouldn’t human institutions, including
government agencies, develop corrosion after years of controlling public
scrutiny of themselves? Given that we are still struggling to understand what
happened in the pandemic, is the fact that all HHS staff are constrained in
their speech a crime against humanity?
---Is
there any reason to think journalists are getting the majority of what is most
critical given that so many people close to the situations are silenced?
---What
are the ethics of journalists working under these controls without openly
opposing them or explaining them to the public? Is the press empowering lethal
censorship?
---Control
of information is at least one of the deadliest things in human history. Now we
are in an era of existentialist threats to humanity. Why are we taking the risk
of allowing any new constraints on reporting?
Also,
would you confirm that:
---For
many years reporters have not had routine physical access to HHS facilities,
including FDA or CDC?
---There
is no credentialling system to allow reporters access to those facilities?
---Usually,
reporters must go through the public information officers to speak to anyone at
HHS agencies, because employees are instructed not to talk to them otherwise?
(This is with the understanding that sometimes staffers do defy the rules and
talk to reporters without going through channels.)
---Frequently
reporters are blocked from speaking to people they request at HHS agencies,
either because the request is denied outright or because the permission process
takes so long the reporter can’t wait?
---Reporters
were under these controls the entire time, as well as years before, while we
had a mass death event?
The Basics
from Former CDC Media Relations Head:
About
Administrations’ Controls and Remaining Elected
In an
interview with me Glen Nowak, former head of CDC media relations said that:
---Scientists
and others are unlikely to talk to reporters without oversight by the public
information office because they have been “trained.”
---Since the 1980s, each political administration saw that
the prior administration had experienced no ill effects from tightening the
controls and proceeded to tighten them further.
---Every contact between a reporter and employee must be
authorized up through the HHS Assistant Secretary of Public Affairs, who is
often a communications person from the presidential campaign. That person, “can say yes or no, or
they can add their recommendations and thoughts to the key messages, and they
can decide whether if this is something that should be elevated to either the
awareness level at the White House….”
---“So,
administrations, typically, their priority is trying to remain elected. And they’re
often looking at policies through, you know: how will this help or not help
when it comes to running for election? How will this help maintain or grow
support? And so, yeah, that’s basically the bottom line,” Nowak said.
