Six Million Pandemic Dead; HHS Staff Still Banned from Speaking to Reporters without Minders

The following letter went to Xavier Becerra, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, March 18.

Secretary Becerra:

This is a question for the news conference planned for tomorrow. It’s being copied to 1000 plus health reporters.

Over several presidential administrations bans on HHS employees speaking to reporters without notification of the authorities have been implemented and have grown progressively tighter.

Among other things, in the years prior to the pandemic CDC blocked and limited reporters, with decisions made behind closed doors about who could talk to which reporter and what could be said.

Now we have six million dead globally and the blockages on reporters continue.

---Why is it ethical for HHS to prohibit all contacts between reporters and staff unless they are overseen by PIOs or others?
---Why is it ethical for HHS to block the information that reporters would get from those staff members who the agency successfully intimidates from telling reporters things because of the oversight or the total blockages?

---Why is it safe for the public for reporting to be under such controls? Even in light of all the problems with free speech, why is it safer for information flow to be under the control of a few people in power with their own conflicts of interest?

I’m respectfully requesting an honest discussion and not general answers like “HHS is very open” or “We put out a lot of information.”

Below is a letter opposing the controls sent by journalism groups to the Office of Science and Technology Policy, as well as other resources.

Please note, also below, that an extensive analysis by the Brechner Center for Freedom of Information says these requirements for reporters to always go through PIOs is illegal.

Thanks for your attention.

I’d be happy to talk to anyone at most anytime.

Kathryn Foxhall

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Resources


---A letter from freedom of information officers of the Society of Professional Journalists and Society of Environmental Journalists went to the Office of Science and Technology Policy decrying the recent scientific integrity report that endorsed these restrictions. We said the policy, “not only violates the scientists’ First Amendment rights, it tramples on the public’s right to know, and it contributes to the spread of misinformation and distrust in government.”

---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.
---Please note in particular that The Brechner Center for Freedom of Information has an extensive legal analysis that finds these rules, although very common, are unconstitutional and many courts have agreed with that. It also says that journalism organizations, themselves, could sue to stop the blockages.
--Yale Law School’s recent conference on access included “Censorship by PIO.”
--The Society of Professional Journalists has said the controls are censorship and authoritarian.
--SPJ has sponsored surveys showing the restraints 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 of blockages in both the public and private sector.

For Sunshine Week: Controls that Have Become the Norm; No Answer from Biden Science Office

INDIANAPOLIS – Editor’s Note: The following column was written by Kathryn Foxhall, Society of Professional Journalists Freedom of Information Committee vice chair, for Sunshine Week.

Last year, 25 groups wrote to President Joe Biden’s administration saying journalists’ jobs are intentionally hindered by the government in many ways. These include, as we wrote, “barring government scientists, issue specialists and other government employees from communicating directly with reporters and even refusing to allow interviews of such scientists or specialists, even with oversight by a public information officer.”

Addressed to the President’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, the letter was signed on by groups including the Society of Professional Journalists, the National Newspaper Association, the Society for Environmental Journalists and the National Association of Black Journalists.

The issue is far from new, of course. Over the past three decades the forced monitoring and blocking of journalists has become tighter and tighter. Some journalists say one presidential administration learns from the last and then builds the controls stronger.

Foundational to the restrictions is the message that agencies or offices give to the employees — written or otherwise — that they may never speak to a journalist without monitoring from the bosses, often through public information offices.

This means that when a reporter contacts a staff member at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the Food and Drug Administration, that person will usually tell the reporter they have to go through the PIOs. From there, officials decide behind closed doors whether there will be an answer at all, who can speak and what can be said.

A comprehensive analysis from the Brechner Center for Freedom of Information found that existing controls are unconstitutional violations of the First Amendment.

Last spring the Washington, D.C., chapter of SPJ wrote to CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, saying the “restrictions on staff speaking to reporters without notifying authorities amount to a human rights abuse, withholding critical perspective from the public and from health professionals.”

Walensky responded, “CDC scientists and researchers communicate with members of the press about their work. However, CDC experts are working scientists and are not always available for interviews. Our press officers serve as points of contact for news media to provide relevant background information and to ensure questions are answered in a timely manner.”

With reporters’ access pretty well controlled through that choke point, leaders can also make briefings few and far between, without fear reporters will get around them.

Journalists get stories, of course. Sometimes we take what officials hand to us or interviews they allow under monitors. Sometimes we fill an article out with comments from outside sources. Sometimes insiders defy the rules and talk to us without reporting to the authorities.

However, with up to several thousand people in an institution prohibited to speak, or prohibited to speak without minders, it’s impossible that we know enough about issues critical to the public.

Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, The New York Times reported that CDC was not releasing all the data it has on COVID. Perhaps reporters should have been in the buildings getting to know staff people, chatting with them normally.

Meanwhile, the controls have become somewhat of a societal norm. Many government entities on the federal, state and local level, businesses and nonprofit organizations put the no-talking-to-the-press rules on employees.

There are many reasons these controls have happened, including reporters rushing to get a story; journalists believing what they get is the story, rather than a limited piece of the overall context; and officials legitimately fearing something will blow up on them, sometimes before they know about it themselves.

However, there is also a great deal of manipulation of information to serve political or other purposes.
As Russia is so profusely illustrating for us, information control by people in power is not just wrong, it’s one of the most corrosive and deadly forces in human existence.

In January, the Office of Science and Technology Policy published the scientific integrity report for the Biden administration, which basically endorsed press control policies as they have existed for years.

Freedom of information officers from SPJ and SEJ wrote to the OSTP, saying the gatekeeping process “has slowed and effectively constricted the flow of information to journalists. The public is instead often fed a steady diet of curated information and official ‘talking points’ designed to support the agency’s position.”

Seven months after the original letter, and with the exception of acknowledgement emails, OSTP has not answered any of the groups’ correspondence.

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:

....

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."

Report: NIH Officials Suppressed News about Fetal Tissue Cells

Last year under the Trump Administration, National Institutes of Health officials decided not to help publicize federally funded research that used fetal tissue cells, “calling it a political landmine,” according to a report in BuzzFeed News.

The news outlet had obtained emails among officials discussing the decision.

According to BuzzFeed, NIH representatives did not respond to requests for comment on the emails.

The article cited my discussion that agencies ban contact between staff and reporters without oversight and push out what they think is news: "Suppression of press alerts for political reasons is an illustration of what unconscionable conflict of interest runs through it all."

Report: Philadelphia School District Considering Forbidding 20,000 Staff from Talking to Media without Sign Off

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer,  the Philadelphia School District "is mulling a policy that would forbid any of its 20,000 employees from talking to the media unless staff from its central office signs off.”

The district spokesperson is quoted as saying this kind of policy is, “standard operating procedure for organizations everywhere.”

The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers president is quoted as saying it’s authoritarian.

Yale Law School Conference Hears: No Documented Case Has Upheld "No Interviews Policy"

At the Yale Law School Access and Accountability Conference last month, Frank LoMonte, director of the Brechner Center on Freedom of Information, said that, “There is no documented case in which a government agency has successfully defended a ‘no interviews’ policy,” controlling employees speaking to the press.

And yet, he said, the policies persist and are pervasive.

I said the current cultural trend supporting these policies is catastrophic. The videos of the conference, including the “Fighting Censorship by PIO” session (number 5) are here. The agenda is here and the background papers are here.