Former Officials Worry about Silenced Federal Staff: The Chickens Come Home to Roost.

I am shaken by the letter from former public health officials asking federal employees to speak out about science and pandemic issues.

Most of those signing are officials from previous presidential administrations.

They were part of building and entrenching the systems, the culture, that says no one in federal agencies could communicate a word with journalists without oversight by authorities, usually the public information officers, who have been transformed into our censors.

The banning of any contact outside of the controls was quite catastrophic enough. But all kinds of barriers, including total blockage, were put on contacts with staff, a long time before President Trump took office.

I was The Nation’s Health editor when the AIDS epidemic emerged, before the blockages. In that fearful time, as a matter of routine, there was the official story and there was the real story. In the early to mid-1990s, the federal establishment began banning the flow of the real stories.

Trying to report on agencies like CDC and FDA was increasingly hellacious under the Bush and Obama administrations.

Representatives from a coalition of over 50 journalism and open government groups met with Obama White House officials in 2015 to ask that this censorship be stopped. We were promised an answer and it never came:

https://www.spj.org/news.asp?ref=1368

We warned press officer Josh Earnest that often when the press does not know something, the administration leaders don’t either.

Now, as one example, if CDC has developed corrosive disabilities, they likely did not begin under this administration. More likely they began under previous administrations while journalists could have no normal contact with staff, as they still can't. Ten thousand plus CDC people are in effect silenced.

After decades of making federal staff live under pressure to never speak without controls, the nation is now hoping, since things have gotten bad enough, they will talk.

It is worth asking whether the nation would be better off under previous administrations when we were limited to controlled, official statements, compared to now when we are often not even getting that. At least now we are not misled into thinking we are getting the full story.

I’d appreciate talking to anyone who signed the letter. For one thing, First Amendment attorney Frank LoMonte has done an extensive analysis that finds the “Censorship by PIO” is unconstitutional and many courts have said so. The former federal officials might help with that.

Media Relations Censorship Marginalizes the Public

“As protests erupt in the wake of police brutality, one key point for journalists to remember is that many police agencies have enforced silence on police officers. And that creates an historically fearful secrecy.”

In a column for the SPJ magazine Quill, I remind journalists that in an “SPJ-sponsored 2016 survey, 56% of police reporters said they can rarely or never interview a police officer without involving a department’s public information officer. Another 30% said they can do those interviews only some of the time.”

“If we can’t speak with police officers without censors, we aren’t ‘there.’ We are marginalized. And that marginalizes the public.”

The full column is here.

Asking the NYT about the Ethics of Reporting Under The "Censorship by PIO"

A few weeks ago I wrote the New York Times, asking about the ethics of reporting under the “Censorship by PIO,” without openly opposing the constraints or directly informing the public about them.

The NYT Director of Communications responded saying they could not accommodate it at this time.

In the letter I said one consequence of the constraints is, “that when the pandemic bore down most reporters had not usually talked to staff in CDC, FDA, etc., without a PIO/censor for many years. Often reporters are completely blocked from talking to the persons they request. For many agencies, reporters cannot enter the building without escort, meaning usually they can’t enter. There is no system for credentialing to allow them to enter.”

My questions included:

---Is it a credible idea that our inability to talk to 10,000 plus people at CDC, for example, does not keep information from the public? Does anything in history indicate such situations will not hide disasters?

---Why is the press taking the risk?

---Journalists have many skills and techniques. Sometimes inside people defy the rules and talk to them. Reporters “get stuff.” They develop impressive stories that push the envelope of what is known. They relentlessly hew to the belief that, “Good reporters get the story anyway.” Does any of that mean we are not missing whole universes of facts and perspectives due to all these silenced people? Is the fact we do get stuff our only justification for working under these restraints?

---Looking at the impressive stories some of your reporters do, would those same excellent reporters not have their socks knocked off if they could walk or call around agencies and talk to people without minders?

Webinar on Constraints on Staff Speech: Slam Dunk Not Legal, Says First Amendment Attorney

The Society of Professional Journalists’ webinar on censorship and obstruction through media relations offices is up on YouTube.

Among others, it features First Amendment attorney Frank LoMonte, who say the rules prohibiting employees from speaking to the media without permission are a pervasive problem and one that is not legal.

He said many journalists tell him that, with interference from public affairs offices, reporters never get to the front line expert. They get handed off to somebody who is handpicked, “probably somebody who was compliant with the agency’s message and was not a dissenter or a troublemaker or a complainer, somebody who was going to toe the agency’s party line.”

Or they got a canned release, said LoMonte.

He said, “We can say with a high degree of confidence, a slam dunk degree of confidence, that it is not legal for a public agency to maintain a policy that says that employees will suffer some kind of retaliation or reprisal or punishment if they are caught talking to the news media without approval.

“It is just overwhelmingly the case that every federal court that has been asked this question has come down the same way and it has been true for many, many decades.”

The courts have also said, LoMonte stressed, that journalists have the legal standing to bring challenges against these rules.

He said he encouraged news organizations and groups like SPJ to look for what are the most blatantly unconstitutional gag policies out there and, “Let’s find ways to take them on.”

LoMonte also said the Brechner Center, which he heads, will issue a report this summer on the similar rules that silence college athletes.

SPJ Webinar May 5 Will Look at Censorship through Media Relations

The Society of Professional Journalists will hold a webinar to look at the controls on journalists including forcing reporters to go through public information officers to speak to anyone, May 5 at 2 p.m.

First Amendment Attorney Frank LoMonte will speak on his extensive analysis that finds controls on employees talking to the press are unconstitutional and many courts have so. 

Kathryn Foxhall, SPJ Freedom of Information Committee member, will talk about journalism ethics in a time when agencies in charge of preventing catastrophes greatly block press scrutiny they don’t control.

Paul Fletcher, Editor of the Virginia Lawyers Weekly and head of the SPJ FOI Committee, will talk about practicalities of dealing with the roadblocks.

A link for registration is below. Recent news coverage is below that.

https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_5fZtlBOCSU65glps

RESOURCES

• Washington Post Media columnist Margaret Sullivan did a piece on the PIO/media relations controls. She cites reporter’s memories of covering agencies over the last two to three decades: “Direct contact was minimized and tightly monitored. Interviews might take place with a public-relations ‘minder’ present.”

• A Columbia Journalism Review article connects the long history of these controls with current circumstances, with among other things, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention being terrifyingly absent from public view.

• 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 32.54.  The site includes a transcript.

• SPJ’s website on the issue gives background. SPJ, other journalism and open government groups have been speaking out against the controls for a decade.

SPJ Webinar Will Look at the Censorship by PIO Issue

The Society of Professional Journalists plans a webinar on the media relations censorship or “Censorship by PIO” issue for May 5. It will feature Paul Fletcher, SPJ’s Freedom of Information chairperson; Frank LoMonte, the First Amendment attorney whose extensive analysis says the restraints are unconstitutional and that many courts have said so; and myself.

Further details to come.

In the Midst of the Pandemic, Some Focus on the Dangers on the Media Relations Censorship

Several news outlets have focused on the media relations censorship or “Censorship by PIO” issue in relation to the pandemic. Below are three.

Washington Post

Washington Post Media columnist Margaret Sullivan did a piece on the PIO/media relations controls on April 18. She cites my memories reporting on agencies over the last two to three decades: “Direct contact was minimized and tightly monitored. Interviews might take place with a public-relations ‘minder’ present.”

Sullivan also quotes First Amendment attorney Frank LoMonte asserting, “There’s a widespread misperception that you check all your free-speech rights at the door when you take a job,” speaking of both government and private corporations.

Columbia Journalism Review

A Columbia Journalism Review article connects the long history of these controls with current circumstances, with among other things, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention being terrifyingly absent from public view.

“Ultimately, the concern is the public’s ability to understand exactly where information is coming from and to judge its accuracy themselves, a process in which the media is intrinsically involved,” the article by Cinnamon Janzer says.

A side note: in the article the former CDC media person (1999-2013), Glen Nowak, indicates that during his tenure, in the absence of a public directory it was difficult for journalists to identify who in the agency to talk to.

He does not mention that going through the media relations office was forced on reporters, even when we were very versed in who we needed to talk to.

In addition, for years CDC had a 100-page directory of experts, listed by alphabetical order of expertise, with direct phone numbers and building locations. They handed it out to reporters.

I have a 1985 copy.

Clearing the FOG

“Clearing the FOG” radio producers interviewed me on the PIO/media relations controls. It aired on WBAI in early April. Available on podcast.

Here’s part of one of my responses: “The idea that without this access it’s harder to do ethical journalism is a point that I’m pushing right now very hard. Journalists talk about this a great deal among themselves. And that includes journalists from the most prominent news organizations. We’ve had whole sessions on it in journalism organizations, in journalism meetings. But somehow or other we don’t tell the public in any big way. Why is that? Maybe it’s because we don’t want to tarnish our own brand….We look at it as a problem and as an irritant to our work, but we can’t bring ourselves to even admit among ourselves that this is keeping stuff from us and from the public.”