Alisa Cromer | for Editor & Publisher
Ask any journalist what makes their blood pressure go up on deadline. It is being routed to a public affairs office without getting the interview, missing a deadline, or just getting a pre-screened department-organized message. Theres no opportunity for follow-up questions or even an off-the-record conversation.
Lately, the public and even local reporters who have not covered a Washington, D.C. beat are unaware of how restricted access has become at the federal level.
District journalists are no longer allowed into federal buildings without an escort and appointment. It is assumed that every interview will be coordinated through public affairs representatives, who are political appointees. If the public information officer (PIO) is not interested in a story or the reporter, they ignore their inquiries or slow-roll it so that the reporter misses the deadline. Its now common practice for PIOs to join calls and monitor live interviews.
And then there are the gag orders, implied or by memo, so federal government employees cannot talk directly to the press without imperiling their career.
These practices are now deeply embedded into government culture and getting worse every year, leaders of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) told E&P during a recent vodcast on the topic. SPJ, a group with 6,000 members, calls it censorship by PIO. Its such a bane that the association created an entire web page dedicated to the issue.
In July 2021, SPJ and 24 more journalists' associations wrote a letter to the White House with specific demands: To be allowed direct contact with sources, access to federal buildings, and that requests for interviews be granted.
At the local level, access to officials and information is less controlled; however, dozens of police departments and state agencies have explicit and implicit gag orders preventing employees from talking to the press, according to new research by the Brechner Center.
Science reporting has also been at the heart of the national controversy, Matthew T. Hall, opinion editor at The San Diego Union-Tribune., told E&P. This was especially true during the Trump administration, when the pandemic surged and the CDC was late with information. Last year, The Washington Post decried its gag order to prevent employees from talking, surfaced by a Freedom of Information Act request after a lawsuit.
The Biden administration promised openness, but by July 2021, after just six months in office, the EPA faced its first stress test and folded. When whistleblowers reported a rubber-stamping of toxic chemicals, the chief of staff in the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, Allison Pierce, sent a memo reminding employees not to talk to the media without going through public affairs.
Tim Wheeler, chair of the Society of Environmental Journalists Freedom of Information Task Forcechair of the and an editor at the Chesapeake Bay Journal, says none of this is shocking nor new.
An army of PIOs is managing the information, he said. You are getting your information filtered as often as not, or they dont get back to you at all.
March 2021 Let the Sunshine In webinar
Just after the Biden administration settled in, Wheeler hosted a webinar with the pithy title, Let the Sunshine In. Will EPA reopen its doors to the press? for SEJ members to meet the new office of public affairs at the Environmental Protection Agency.
He started by talking about Bidens promised openness and the executive order to restore scientific transparency. How do you intend to restore transparency? Does that include the ability for reporters to interview staff and get a timely start on answers to questions?
Lyndsay Hamilton, enthusiastic, whip-smart and just two months on the job as associate administrator for the office, took the lead. Nick Conger, the EPAs press secretary, was playing back-up.
Hamilton said her goal is a positive, transparent relationship. She views media relations as a service we provide ... We are committed to sharing timely, accurate information to the best of our ability ... it is your job to always ask for more. If we cant (get you what you need), dont be afraid to ask about the why.
Conger started with, Can we just say happy Sunshine Week? He talked about empowering regional executives to answer media questions but still coordinated with public affairs.
Next question.
Wheeler asked, There was a time when reporters did not have to go through a PIO for permission or have minders present at the interview. Can we go back to that, and if not, why not?
Hamilton responded, Im not going to debate the word minders with you, and explained that staffers sit in on interviews to be helpful. She said the role of media relations is to make sure journalists are connected to the right source, that sources are comfortable talking to media, to let conversations play out, and to follow up on items we need to do. Accuracy is another issue.
Besides, she has allowed interviews without a staffer listening in. They are not on every call.
Wheeler had brought some messages from environmental journalists who could not attend. One wrote that she was so excited about getting a thorough response by email from a scientist that she was giddy. Three more said that they never got their requested interview. Two were regional reporters, but a district reporter said he had not had an on-the-record interview with someone at the EPA since the Obama administration.
Hamilton responded that the new EPA would strive to do better. She gave out her and Congors emails as go-tos in case of a problem, noting that theirs is still a small team of political appointees.
There may be other reasons for no response. For example, scientists may not want to talk, and We dont require them to. We are certainly straining to do our best We might miss an email here and there.
Wheeler had another question, The two scientists recently talked to me on the record without coordinating (with your office). Did they violate EPA policy?
Well, Im not going to track them down unless you want me to, Hamilton answered. We do ask (them) to coordinate with public affairs, but Im glad you got the information.
What if a scientist is speaking at a scientific conference, and I approach them afterward, during a break. Are they allowed to talk to me? he asked.
Hamilton stuttered a bit. Sure, I mean. Absolutely. Sure. I mean, they are in a public forum already. Yeah, absolutely.
Well, Wheeler noted, Ive seen a PR official swoop into the conversation in some instances ... Just so you know.
Hamilton added that she does this, too. As the PR person on site, I do sometimes join a conversation to know who the reporter is, where they are from We do like to know what people are saying about the agency.
What about the Executive Order that Biden signed 24 hours into his presidency, directing agencies to review scientific integrity practices and identify more effective ways of interacting with the media.
Did he mean going through a spokesperson? asked Wheeler.
Not sure we have a full answer, Hamilton said. We will soon.
Todays censorship
Censorship by PIO is so insidious in part because the media have quietly gone along. No reporters have faced arrest for pushing back. Stories get published. Even if the information is managed, the job gets done.
We are not printing blank pages, but part of the story is missing, explains Kathryn Foxhall, who covered the medical and science beat, including the CDC, for decades.
It will be correct; probably it will be interesting. It will suffice, but there will be all kinds of things that are not mentioned, like budget, political pressures, differences of opinion within the agency, she said.
Foxhall, who has referred to PIOs as censors, minders, controllers and spies in articles and speaking engagements, was one of the earliest and still one of the fiercest proponents for press access. In September, she was awarded SPJs Wells Memorial Key award for her efforts.
To give an example of how covering Washington changed during her career, she likes to tell a story from the Reagan era, when she could talk to a source unsupervised. She was interviewing a high-level source at the CDC about recent budget cuts just as the AIDS epidemic unfolded.
He was saying, Well make do and blah blah blah, Foxhall recalled. I was trying to get off the phone, when I asked what he would say if he were off the record. He reversed course and absolutely exploded. The story I wrote massively changed, and those changes could have saved lives.
Today, these confidential conversations have been largely eliminated. We now have over 4 million pandemic dead, she said.
For over two decades, public health agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, have controlled public scrutiny of themselves.
So how did this happen?
Foxhall says she first noticed sources redirecting her to official channels in the early 1990s. The newsroom talked about these blocks and what to do about it. There was some eyeball rolling. but you could still get around it with some people skills, she said. Over the years, it got tighter and tighter.
Another reason is the way governments are organized. Department heads are political appointees, while the staff, scientists and lower-level public affairs officers are career employees and subject matter experts.
Over time, each presidential administration inserted a growing layer of political appointees of PIOs on top of the careerist departments and started pulling strings, steering coordinating all speech to reporters.
Ironically, Obama was more of a micromanager of information released by lower-profile federal agencies than Trump. Despite his rhetoric, Trump was primarily interested in controlling departments involved in high-profile news stories and essentially left the lower-profile departments alone, sources say.
With Biden, micro-management has returned. PIOs, who are political appointees, have started to weigh in on every piece of information and interview that goes out, including which reporters and news outlets get access, and rewriting press releases with political messages in mind.
It hasnt helped that the news media shed thousands of journalists who migrated over to these expanded public affairs offices.
Wheeler does not blame these former journalists. It is not always the PIO, but the president and governors and people they appoint who control dissent and contraindications, Wheeler said, adding, Some of my best friends are PIOs.
And there are other factors. After 9/11, access to federal buildings was restricted, so credentialed reporters could no longer enter without an appointment and escort. COVID-19 shut down most public meetings and other events that provided face-to-face opportunities for journalists to meet public officials without a chaperone.
To report this story, we contacted eight government PIOs by email. One went off the record, on deep background. One was afraid to talk because she was new. Finally, one said she would get back to me with a time but missed the deadline.
The other PIOs at the CDC, EPA, the Department of Interior, the National Association of Government Communicators, and Health and Human Services had not responded by deadline.
A case to battle restricted access
If the media is going to challenge the culture of restricted access, the battle will probably be fought in the courts.
Frank LoMonte, the First Amendment attorney at the Brechner Center, who has written a white paper on case law as a roadmap for news media to use in the future, feels the courts have favored employees talking about their jobs despite blanket gag orders.
The reality is that the employee always wins. We have dug back as far as we can, and the judges say the gag orders are too broad every time. These are 24 cases and all kinds of judges, he said. The bottom line is that (legally) you cannot enforce a gag order preventing an employee from discussing their work with the news media, he said.
The most important Supreme Court case, United States v. National Treasury Employees Union, circa 1995, only confirmed the legal status on which the lower courts have always agreed.
We know (blanket gag orders) exist. We know they are pervasive across all levels of government. But Im here to tell you its a dead man walking. They are all illegal; they are just waiting for someone to sue, LoMonte said.
Whats missing is the perfect case.
Most plaintiffs in existing case law have been government employees, such as schoolteachers and police officers. However, with the decline of labor unions who supplied the money and the lawyers, these cases dried up.
So today, LoMonte is setting the stage for a media organization to file suit eventually. It just must be the right case to avoid creating a legal precedent that could worsen things.
So what would the perfect case look like?
According to LoMonte, the media should look for a government agency with a blanket gag order policy that is clear and in writing. An employee handbook is better than a mass email. A mass email is better than a series of single ones, and any email is better than a verbal rebuke. The CDC emails, though explosive at the time, he said, did not make the cut.
Asked if hes worried that governments wont just vague up their cultural policies after reading this article thinking here of the EPAs broad guidelines to please coordinate he said not to worry. Plenty of government agencies at the state and local level outline exactly what employees cant say.
His new research has already turned up a couple of dozen illegal policies at police departments, including the NYPD, despite the fact it has already been sued once on the issue and lost. Sixteen state agencies in Georgia also have explicit gag order policies.
His advice to journalists is to start documenting.
Ask the (sources) who were gagged, Did you see a memo? Run it to the ground and document it, he told SPJ attendees on the stage with Foxhall. Get the agency on the record. Where did it come from, who made it?
Another culprit in Censorship by PIO is the media itself.
The press acquiesced, Foxhall contended. Why isnt the news industry fighting the controls? One of the top reasons, in my opinion, is that we need their stuff. Its easier and inexpensive to quote an official source. If the press parrots (an official source), it takes about an hour to write it up. (But) we dont want to discredit our own story by saying how little we know.
She suggested that journalists need to start consistently writing about their access and make it part of the story. Lose the embarrassment that journalists are supposed to know everything, and therefore we cant admit that these people are successfully blocking our newsgathering.
The San Diego chapter of SPJ gives Brick and Window awards once a year to highlight the access issue.
We need to call attention, Matthew T. Hall said. Im hoping someone at the Biden administration watches when this is published and picks up the phone.
Alisa Cromer is the editor of LocalMediaInsider, an online trade journal covering the media industry. She grew up in Washington, D.C.
View post:
Censorship by PIO - Editor And Publisher Magazine
- NRA case shows the Supreme Court must stop informal censorship - Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- Microsoft faces bipartisan criticism for alleged censorship on Bing in China - The Register - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- Is Fighting Misinformation Censorship? The Supreme Court Will Decide. - Reply All | Gimlet - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- The censorship industry and it's connection to Israel - JNS.org - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- How to improve Chinese TV? Better censorship, says top tellie-maker - The Register - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- Up First briefing: Putin wins Russian election; SCOTUS censorship case - NPR - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- Elon Musk calls X number one source of news in the worldand also a hardcore, player versus player platform - Fortune - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- Asking is not censorship: No First Amendment bar for government to talk to publishers - New York Daily News - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- X-Men: The Animated Series was defined by its censors - Polygon - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- Justice Jackson lambasted for 'concern' 1st Amendment could 'hamstring government' in COVID censorship hearing - Fox News - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- The Beginning of the End for the Censorship-Industrial Complex? - National Review - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- RFK Jr.: Government shouldnt have role in social media moderation - NewsNation Now - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- Self-Pollinating Narrator of 'Wishtree' Called 'Indoctrination,' Virginia District Group Read Canceled | Censorship News - News Letter Journal - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- This Country Can't Afford A SCOTUS Weak On Internet Censorship - The Federalist - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- Banning TikTok is just the first step to censorship - Point Park Globe - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- SCOTUS Ponders Whether Biden Administration Coerced Social Media Platforms To Censor Speech - Reason - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- In Virginia, Censors Attempt to Axe 'Wishtree' - Publishers Weekly - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- Elon Musk Says Moderation Is a Propaganda Word for Censorship About Offensive X Posts - Rolling Stone - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- Supreme Court Makes A Mockery Of Free Speech - The Federalist - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- No matter how you view TikTok, banning the platform would be censorship - The Daily Orange - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- China must look beyond censorship and economic power to win hearts and minds - South China Morning Post - February 5th, 2024 [February 5th, 2024]
- 'The View' Producers Forced To Censor Ana Navarro's Expletive As She Talks About Biden - Daily Caller - February 5th, 2024 [February 5th, 2024]
- How China Censors Critics of the Economy - The New York Times - February 5th, 2024 [February 5th, 2024]
- A Startup Allegedly 'Hacked the World.' Then Came the Censorshipand Now the Backlash - WIRED - February 5th, 2024 [February 5th, 2024]
- Negative Takes on China's Economy Are Disappearing From the Internet - The Wall Street Journal - February 5th, 2024 [February 5th, 2024]
- Let The Government Censor Away Through Agents It Controls, Say Cabal Of A.G.s To U.S. Supreme Court Wirepoints - Wirepoints - February 5th, 2024 [February 5th, 2024]
- 14 Massachusetts colleges land on restrictive free speech list: Censorship and terrible policies - Boston Herald - February 5th, 2024 [February 5th, 2024]
- The Association of Appin Training Centers is waging a global censorship campaign to stop you from reading these ... - MuckRock - February 5th, 2024 [February 5th, 2024]
- Norway owns a part of Putin's propaganda and censorship machine - The Independent Barents Observer - February 5th, 2024 [February 5th, 2024]
- Censorship? That's just obscene! | Opinion | register-herald.com - Beckley Register-Herald - February 5th, 2024 [February 5th, 2024]
- Censorship in the West is the same as Mao's China, says Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei - Sky News - February 5th, 2024 [February 5th, 2024]
- South Korean government reported to announce plans for smoking scene censorship from K-dramas and films at the ... - Sportskeeda - February 5th, 2024 [February 5th, 2024]
- Prime Video's 'Expats' Was Filmed in Hong Kongbut You Can't Watch It There - TIME - February 5th, 2024 [February 5th, 2024]
- ADF to 8th Circuit: Govt can't censor pro-life views - ADF Media - February 5th, 2024 [February 5th, 2024]
- Fox News Forced To Censor Trump As He Rants About Gavin Newsom And Michelle Obama - Towleroad - February 5th, 2024 [February 5th, 2024]
- NYC teachers will exchange notes on how to get around censorship to teach kids about the genocide in Gaza - New York Post - February 5th, 2024 [February 5th, 2024]
- The GOP Has a Plan for Online Safety. It Involves Censoring LGBTQ Content. - The New Republic - February 5th, 2024 [February 5th, 2024]
- Opinion: Need help finding a good book? Try one your 9th grader isn't allowed to read - Los Angeles Times - February 5th, 2024 [February 5th, 2024]
- 'Gateway to Censorship': Journalist Bodies Express Concern Over Proposed Broadcasting Services Bill - The Wire - February 5th, 2024 [February 5th, 2024]
- The Dangerous Pursuit of Journalism in Russia: A Harrowing Reality - Medriva - February 5th, 2024 [February 5th, 2024]
- Global censorship campaign raises alarms - Freedom of the Press Foundation - January 21st, 2024 [January 21st, 2024]
- Texas Library Censorship Attempt Struck Down By 5th Circuit - Above the Law - January 21st, 2024 [January 21st, 2024]
- Attacks, arrests, threats, censorship: The high risks of reporting the Israel-Gaza war - Committee to Protect Journalists - January 21st, 2024 [January 21st, 2024]
- South Sudan's Battle with Censorship: Removing Hateful News Articles - The Organization for World Peace - January 21st, 2024 [January 21st, 2024]
- Intimidation leading to censorship in Wisconsin school libraries - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - January 21st, 2024 [January 21st, 2024]
- Censorship over Palestine: Holocaust Survivor Decries Repression After Talks in Germany Are Canceled - Democracy Now! - January 21st, 2024 [January 21st, 2024]
- As Legacy Media Continues in Decline, It Espouses Censorship More - Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence - January 21st, 2024 [January 21st, 2024]
- Trump Nomination: Pundit Expects Censorship, Calls for Riots - The Dallas Express - January 21st, 2024 [January 21st, 2024]
- Data Overwhelmingly Supports Libraries and Library Workers: Book Censorship News, January 5, 2024 - Book Riot - January 5th, 2024 [January 5th, 2024]
- Blame adults these days for censorship - Times Higher Education - January 5th, 2024 [January 5th, 2024]
- CNN admits it runs all Gaza coverage through bureau monitored by Israeli military censor - Salon - January 5th, 2024 [January 5th, 2024]
- Does your Pa. school policy open the door to censorship? - phillyBurbs.com - January 5th, 2024 [January 5th, 2024]
- Iran's internet price rises, and so does the fear of greater censorship - TechRadar - January 5th, 2024 [January 5th, 2024]
- Report highlights censorship and repression of Palestine solidarity across Europe - Morning Star Online - January 5th, 2024 [January 5th, 2024]
- 2024, the year that four billion go the polls - Index on Censorship - January 5th, 2024 [January 5th, 2024]
- Government Internet censorship was imposed 196 times last year - 9to5Mac - January 5th, 2024 [January 5th, 2024]
- In the shadows of self-censorship: The impact of the Cyber Security Act on Bangladeshs LGBTQ+ movement - Global Voices - January 5th, 2024 [January 5th, 2024]
- Jeffrey Wright Says Studio Hired a Replacement Actor to Dub Him After He Refused to Censor the N-Word in a Film: Nah. Thats Not Happening - Variety - January 5th, 2024 [January 5th, 2024]
- Comedian and musician Tom Smothers dies at 86: A victim of government and corporate censorship in the late 1960s - WSWS - January 5th, 2024 [January 5th, 2024]
- Polish pavilion selection at Venice Biennale gets political as rejected artist cries censorship - Art Newspaper - January 5th, 2024 [January 5th, 2024]
- Wartime censorship is necessary, but must be responsible - editorial - The Jerusalem Post - January 5th, 2024 [January 5th, 2024]
- Jeffrey Wright Says a Replacement Actor Dubbed His Lines When He Refused to Censor the N-Word - PEOPLE - January 5th, 2024 [January 5th, 2024]
- Judicial Watch Sues Biden Censorship Agency for Records Targeting Judicial Watch and Its President Tom Fitton - Judicial Watch - January 5th, 2024 [January 5th, 2024]
- Jeffrey Wright Says He Refused To Censor The N-Word In Ride With The Devil & Walked Away From Dubbing Film - Deadline - January 5th, 2024 [January 5th, 2024]
- Academic Bias and Censorship Are Huge Problems, and We Can Prove It - National Review - January 4th, 2024 [January 4th, 2024]
- Laws banning semi-automatic weapons and library censorship to take effect in Illinois - Toronto Star - January 4th, 2024 [January 4th, 2024]
- Here Are The States Urging SCOTUS To Allow Biden Admin To Coordinate With Big Tech To Censor Online Speech - Daily Caller - January 4th, 2024 [January 4th, 2024]
- China Tries To Censor Data About Nearly 1 Billion People in Poverty - Newsweek - January 4th, 2024 [January 4th, 2024]
- Laws banning semi-automatic weapons and library censorship to take effect in Illinois - Firstpost - January 4th, 2024 [January 4th, 2024]
- Iowa School District removes over 70 books without following proper review procedures - Blogging Censorship - January 4th, 2024 [January 4th, 2024]
- Chinese election interference tests Taiwans capability to defend freedom of speech - Index on Censorship - January 4th, 2024 [January 4th, 2024]
- Laws banning semi-automatic weapons and library censorship to take effect in Illinois - Index-Journal - January 4th, 2024 [January 4th, 2024]
- Censorship and the case for institutional literacy - The Hill - December 20th, 2023 [December 20th, 2023]
- Release Of Aquaman And The Lost Kingdoms Dubbed Versions DELAYED Due To Censor Board - Times Now - December 20th, 2023 [December 20th, 2023]
- Gary Simmons on Censorship, Minstrelsy, and the Scourge of Art Fairs - Interview - December 20th, 2023 [December 20th, 2023]
- Jeff Crouere: Censorship is un-American; free speech is the answer - The Franklin Sun - December 20th, 2023 [December 20th, 2023]
- Mother Russia. Who is the face of Russian online censorship, scourge of Russian rappers and Gen-Z icon - . - December 20th, 2023 [December 20th, 2023]
- Why Middle East scholars are self-censoring in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war - NPR - December 20th, 2023 [December 20th, 2023]
- "Keeping Your Mouth Shut: Spiraling Self-Censorship in the United States" - Reason - December 20th, 2023 [December 20th, 2023]
- EU TARGETS Elon Musk's Twitter for MORE CENSORSHIP Over 'HAMAS PROPAGANDA': Rising Reacts - The Hill - December 20th, 2023 [December 20th, 2023]