To Editors: Isn't This Corruption of the Press Itself?

 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.

Courier Journal Finds "Censorship by PIO" Is Common in Kentucky Government

Although a legal review has said the practice is unconstitutional, the Courier Journal article says that its review of “35 Kentucky state and local agencies’ policies found that 70% restrict or prohibit employees from talking to news outlets….”

“Punishments are rarely imposed by local and state agencies for violations, but in July 2022, then-LMPD Chief Erika Shields suspended Officer Donavis Duncan for two days without pay for giving several interviews to news outlets about the death of Breonna Taylor, who lived in his apartment building,” the article says.

According to the Courier Journal the state attorney general’s office says, “Employees shall refrain from commenting to the media on matters involving office policy, cases, opinions and investigations or any other business of the Office of the Attorney General.” The policy adds that any employee “who fails to follow this policy may be subject to corrective disciplinary action up to and including dismissal.”

The article quotes Frank LoMonte, a First Amendment attorney and now counsel for CNN, as saying: “Though the practice of gagging public employees from giving unapproved interviews is pervasive across all levels of government, decades’ worth of First Amendment caselaw demonstrates that blanket restrictions on speaking to the media are legally unenforceable.”

Many of the same type policies are in effect in many state and localities, according to surveys sponsored by the Society of Professional Journalists.

The article is on the newspaper’s site. A firewall applies.

The Child Separation Story: Reporters Should Have Been There

 This went to Jeffrey Goldberg, Editor in Chief, The Atlantic magazine, on May 9. 

Mr. Goldberg:

 Thank you so much for the story on the separation of the children and congratulations on the Pulitzer Prize.

 After years of working with SPJ and others on the gag rules in agencies, etc., I’m asking some “direct” questions, not just of you, but of many journalists.

 Doesn’t your separation story show that journalists have an obligation to be there in the government agencies and to be talking to people without PIO or other authorities monitoring? Or to be fighting like all hell to end the policies that block that?

 Isn’t there a solid chance that this whole horror of human rights abuse would not have happened if reporters had been there and had no censors on their communications?

 FYI, an extensive review by Frank LoMonte, prominent First Amendment attorney, says journalists can sue on this issue and would have a great chance of winning.

Thanks for your attention. Below is part of my email to The Atlantic from last fall which explains more.

I hope we can talk.

Thanks,

Kathryn Foxhall

 Please note: Glen Nowak, a former CDC head of media relations and longtime communications employee, has said that since the 1980s the restrictions on CDC staff have grown tighter with each presidential administration; every contact is controlled up through the political levels; and that this system “works” for officials in terms of suppressing information.

 Over the last 30-40 years there has been a trend in employers and others banning subordinates from speaking to the press without oversight from authorities. This is often done through a public information office.

 My 2022 article in the Columbia Journalism Review is on the history of this trend. I am a longtime health reporter and serve as a sort of point person on the gag rules.

 I wanted to ask the Atlantic in particular to consider this because the story on child separation is very impressive. But as with so many other stories, the whole situation probably could have been avoided had reporters not been under such intense censorship: locked out of buildings and facing thousands of staff people forbidden to talk to us. Is it ethical for any of us to get such a story after the fact and not explain and fight the restrictions on reporters?

 The same is true of Covid. We now have at least six million dead and virtually all 90 thousand people in HHS essentially silenced, as they have been for years.

 The system looks like this: All employees are prohibited to speak to reporters without oversight starting with the public information office. Then when a reporter contacts PIOs for permission to talk to someone, the request must go up through the political layers of government, at least to the HHS Secretary of Public Affairs and often to the White House. Behind closed doors officials decide who may speak to whom and what may be discussed.

From all reports we have heard, most requests from reporters’ to speak to someone are not granted.

 The situation is a horrific danger to human welfare. The conflict of interest for agency leaders is overwhelming given they have controls over what journalists can discern about them and their work.  Informed consent can hardly be real when the entire population is blocked from getting independent perspective on what agencies do to impact them.

 There is an excellent chance that specialized reporters, if they had been free to network within the buildings or do normal communication could have told an expert audience about the agency’s problems long before they resulted in pandemic failures.

 Please note among other things:

 -- 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 finds that these constraints, although very common, are unconstitutional and many courts have agreed with that. (The longer version is a legal brief.)

-- Among many communications over years, 25 journalism and other groups wrote to the Biden Administration’s Office of Science and Technology Policy asking for elimination of such restrictions in the federal government.

 I hope we can talk.

 Other Resources

-- Journalism groups’ FOI officers told the New York Times, “The press should not be taking the risk of assuming that what we get is all there is when so many people are silenced. We should be openly fighting these controls.” The longer version of the letter is here.

-- “Editor and Publisher” featured the issue in October 2021.

-- My bio: I have been a reporter mostly covering federal health agencies for over 40 years, including 14 years as editor of The Nation’s Health at the American Public Health Association. I have served as a point person on the issue of gag rules for over eight years. I was honored to receive the 2021 Wells Key, the highest honor for a member of the Society of Professional Journalists, specifically for this work.

 

 

Cato Institute Panelists: Yes, The Gag Rules Were Key to the Failures in the Pandemic

This was my question put forth for a December session at the Cato Institute about the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:

“Over the last 30-40 years there has been a trend in employers banning subordinates from speaking to the press without the authorities’ oversight, often through a public information office. Having covered CDC before and after these controls, I have zero doubt these restrictions were key in the agency’s failures. Given the deadly history of information control, the question is: why wouldn’t they be key to the agency’s failures?”

Ronald Bailey, Science Correspondent for Reason Magazine and adjunct scholar of the Cato Institute, answered: “As a science journalist--science policy journalist--I completely agree with that. Years ago, when I was beginning, I could call up anybody at a federal agency, basically. USDA if I wanted to talk about genetically modified crops, for example, or at the FDA for new treatments, and could get the person on the line who’s the actual researcher and say, ‘So what's going on? Tell me what’s going on.’ And that slowly but surely began to clamp down. It began under the Clinton administration. It got worse and worse over time. And eventually I stopped calling because what happens is that you identify the person who you want to talk to, you call them. They say, ‘I have to get up with my public information officer first.’ Then, the public information officer will say a week later, ‘You can talk to them, but I’m going to be on the line listening.’ And eventually, basically, you had the possibility of independent information coming out of the agencies to a journalist: it just died on the vine. So, I think a lot of people have had this experience in the journalism world. I think it’s terrible. These people are public servants. They should be able to speak to the rest of us as they would any other citizen, in my humble opinion.”

Martin A. Makary, MD, MPH, professor of surgery, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and professor of health policy and management, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, said, “I think that the quote you read is so key to understanding this pandemic. A leader in [a journalism organization] says that basically tens of thousands of scientists across all these agencies have been gagged. They are not allowed to speak to the media. That is toxic. I mean: that is toxic. In science, that is sort of, you know, the ultimate golden rule that we reserve the right to speak freely about what we believe to be the truth. And so that, I think, was a huge part. Now, I got a chance to talk to so many people who work in agencies: number two, number three, level people, at different departments, and I wrote a piece for Bari Weiss showing that there is not consensus there. When their director gets up there, there are people very high up who are so fed up. They are quitting. They are leaving in droves. They are pissed off. One of them told me that they feel like they’re watching a horror movie and they are forced to keep their eyes open. They couldn’t believe it: ‘I can’t speak.’ A journalist will reach out and the Communications Department at the NIH will say: “We have a media inquiry for you. Tell us what you’re going to tell them and then we will decide whether or not you can do it.” I mean, my parents grew up with state-controlled TV. I think that’s better than what we’re seeing in the NIH.”

Makary, in his last comment for the session said, “Everyone likes to peg what you say as, alright, ‘Are you on my political side or their political side?’….Let’s put all that aside and allow people to speak out freely, namely the many thousands of scientists at the NIH and CDC and HHS who have been gagged from speaking to the public. That is probably the worst poison in our government that persists today. A problem that we can fix, that we have not yet fixed.”

[Makary co-authored the article “U.S. Public Health Agencies Aren’t ‘Following the Science,’ Officials Say,” in The Free Press.]

Time mark: The discussion of the gag rules in the Cato session video begins at about 40.14 minutes.

To NYT: The Threat of Bans on Speaking to Journalists

On June 16 a letter from Freedom of Information officers from two journalism groups appeared in the New York Times.

The longer version of that letter, copied to most of the editorial staff of the New York Times, is below.


To the New York Times Editorial Board:

Your opinion piece of March 18, America Has a Free Speech Problem, said, “This editorial board plans to identify a wide range of threats to freedom of speech in the coming months and to offer possible solutions.”

While that piece focused in large part on so-called “cancel culture,” we believe that one of the most dangerous threats to free speech and press is the tremendous growth over about three decades of government offices and agencies, businesses and other institutions banning employees from speaking to journalists. Sometimes the bans are total. Sometimes they prohibit contact unless the staff member or the reporter notifies gatekeepers, often through public information offices. According to Society of Professional Journalists surveys and discussions with journalists and others, these controls on access to information and experts have become a cultural norm.

Public employees, at least, not only have a First Amendment right, they have an obligation to be open and transparent about the work they do on behalf of the public. It is work paid for by the taxpayers, which the government has no right to withhold or suppress.

Last year 25 journalism and other groups wrote to the Biden Administration’s Office of Science and Technology Policy asking for elimination of such restrictions in the federal government and for restoring journalists' access to agencies.

Despite our pride in some outstanding journalism, we don’t believe any news outlet overcomes all the blockages and the intimidation of source people that this gatekeeping censorship creates. Quite enough information is successfully hidden to be corrosive. We don’t believe the press should be taking the risk of assuming what we get is all there is when there are so many people silenced. We should be openly fighting these policies and informing the public about the controls.

As the Covid death toll mounted in 2020, for instance, CDC told their media relations staff to remember that just because reporters persist in asking to talk to someone in the agency that doesn’t mean they have to be allowed to.

Now with at least six million dead and a history of shortcomings in containing the pandemic, that censorship process at the CDC and many other agencies remains, with officials deciding behind closed doors who can speak to which reporter and what may be discussed.

Please note that the extensive legal analysis from The Brechner Center for Freedom of Information finds that these constraints, although very common, are unconstitutional and that many courts have agreed with that. The longer version is a legal brief.

Other resources are below.

As you analyze the threats to free speech it’s critical for this and other nations that you focus on these restraints.

Thank you.

Haisten Willis
Chair, Freedom of Information Committee
Society of Professional Journalists

Kathryn Foxhall
Vice Chair, Freedom of Information Committee
Society of Professional Journalists

Timothy Wheeler
Chair, Freedom of Information Task Force
Society of Environmental Journalists

Statement at SPJ Session: The Pervasive Gag Rules Are a Deadly Crime Against Humanity

Below is my statement given at a session at the Society of Professional Journalists meeting, MediaFest22, October 27-30.

Before I say what may sound like a conspiracy theory, I want you to know we have been looking at the gag rules, or “censorship by PIO” for like 14 years. We have had meetings and written letters. Frank LoMonte did in-depth legal analyses showing these controls are unconstitutional. I have talked to many journalists. I was deeply honored last year when SPJ gave me the Wells Key, the highest member award, specifically for this work.

So here is what I have been reluctant to say. This massive transition over the last 30-40 years, instituting gag rules everywhere, with power people banning other people from talking to journalists at all or from talking to them without constraints and guards--this is deep, deep corruption of both the insiders and the press.

This is a horrific, pervasive crime against humanity. One more time: This is a horrific, deadly crime against humanity.

We have at least six million Covid dead, in significant part because the press is so controlled.

Six million Covid dead and virtually all 90 thousand people in HHS essentially silenced. That includes some of the most expert people alive and many less exalted insiders who observe and know a lot.

We have lost our collective minds. Does anyone believe that if we weren’t frightening people from speaking, including speaking confidentially to reporters, we wouldn’t know much more about this pandemic and the workings of the institutions we rely on?

Expand that picture to the fact that these rules are applied to most of the federal government and many entities, public and private, across the nation. Why wouldn’t our systems be riddled with vulnerabilities?

Journalists just say, “Good reporters get the story anyway.”

That’s it. That’s all we got.

Our only justification for looking straight at blatant information control, probably the deadliest thing in the world ever. And we don’t tell the public.

Journalists do get stuff. And some of it is seriously impressive and impactful. We have sources. Some people do talk to us.

That is very unfortunate for the human race.

Because, while we look like we have things covered, there is not a molecule of evidence we get half of what is critical. Or even that individual stories have enough of what is critical to not be misleading. We are oblivious to what people would say if they were not under surveillance, even long after our material is published.

On the other hand, there’s much of evidence we do not get everything. Many situations come to light after a long, toxic existence.

Professor Jay Rosen said the news system is not designed for public understanding. It’s designed to produce content every day.

What can journalists do? Say it loud. Say it with alarm. Tell your community the likely impact of police departments or city administrations, silencing everyone, banning all confidential communication with the press. Investigate it. Expect most people to be passive. That’s the hardest part.

Keep saying it.

The press may not be acquiescing to these restrictions with the viciousness of Nazi propagandists. But the world is now into an era of existential crises. If we continue ignoring the information control, assuming whatever we get is all there is, this could lead to more deaths than World War II.

The session was on October 29 with the title, “Obstruction of Reporting through PIO Controls and Other Means: Responding to the Controls on Free Speech and Free Press.”


Resources

---Glen Nowak, a former CDC media relations head, confirms that the controls on the press at the agency have “worked” for officials in terms of suppressing stories they did not want published. He says they have grown tighter since the 1980s with each presidential administration realizing that the prior one suffered no adverse consequences from imposing the restrictions.

---My recent article in the Columbia Journalism Review is on the history of this trend which has made the gag rules pervasive in many kinds of entities.

-- 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 finds that these constraints, although very common, are unconstitutional and many courts have agreed with that. (The longer version is a legal brief.)

-- Among many other communications over years, 25 journalism and other groups wrote to the Biden Administration’s Office of Science and Technology Policy asking for elimination of such restrictions in the federal government.

-- Journalism groups FOI officers told the New York Times, “The press should not be taking the risk of assuming that what we get is all there is when so many people are silenced. We should be openly fighting these controls.”

-- “Editor and Publisher” featured the issue in October 2021.

Former CDC Media Relations Head: Restraints on Reporters "Worked" for Political Officials

David Shipley
Editorial Page Editor

Karen Tumulty
Deputy Editorial Page Editor
The Washington Post

 

Mr. Shipley, Ms. Tumulty:

Glen Nowak, a former CDC media relations head, confirms that the controls on the press at the agency have “worked” for officials in terms of suppressing stories they did not want published.

This means that for years prior to the pandemic officials hid things from the public, using restrictions including banning staff from speaking to reporters without oversight through the public information office. Then people in power, up through the political administration, decided behind closed doors whether the requested contact could happen and what might be said.

Nowak will be speaking at the meeting of the Society of Professional Journalists this week about the controls.

Will you join us at the session and talk about why the Washington Post and others in the press have allowed the restrictions to continue without openly opposing them or alerting the public?

My recent article in the Columbia Journalism Review is on the history of this trend. Having covered federal health agencies as the rules tightened over the 30-40 years, I have zero doubt that the press’ acquiescence to the information control was a top factor in giving us a pandemic far deadlier than it had to be.

I will argue at the session that this is a crime against humanity, with the press just as responsible as the insiders.

The automatic response from many journalists about this situation is, “Good reporters get the story anyway.” With 80,000 staff in HHS alone virtually silenced, that’s a senseless and fearful assumption to allow millions of lives to depend on.

Journalists do get some seriously impactful stories. However, it’s very unlikely we get an adequate proportion of what is critical. Various evidence of journalism’s controlled state includes the many situations that emerge only after a long, noxious existence.

Your editorial, “A Media Masquerade” rightly decries so-called news websites, paid for by political groups that “launder advocacy through these sites.” However, presidential administrations use our precious public health agencies, among other entities, to do some potent laundering by restricting what legitimate journalists can hear.

The SPJ session is “Obstruction of Reporting through PIO Controls and Other Means; Responding to the Controls on Free Speech and Free Press,” Saturday, October 29, 2:30 p.m.

I hope to see you.

Also, I will be happy to talk to anyone.

Kathryn Foxhall

CC: The Post editorial staff