The rise of the official spokesmen, spokeswomen, spokespersons, spokesones — pick the one that works best for you — for state government agencies is becoming more pervasive and more oppressive with each administration in Jefferson City.
It too often reaches a point where reporters are refused opportunities to speak to those in state government who are most knowledgeable about a subject, a policy or an issue.
It is not a uniform matter in all agencies. Some of the PR people understand one of their functions is to connect reporters to the knowledgeable people in their departments or divisions who are prepared to answer any questions reporters might have. But others have taken the position, or been given the position, of keeping reporters away from department or division directors or others within the bureaucracy who have the specific expertise the reporter needs for his story.
Such was the recent case with the Department of Economic Development’s study called “The Green Jobs Report.” The report was compiled by the Missouri Economic Research & Information Center for the Missouri Division of Workforce Development, a division of the Economic Development Department. The report was signed by MERIC Director Marty Romitti. It had some interesting stuff in its 41 pages.
We shared the section on “Green Farming” with our colleagues on the Brownfield Network, our Agriculture Network, who provided some interesting questions to ask.
It strikes us as naive to think that a department’s public relations person could give the candid answers to questions on that issue and the others than could be given by a person intimately familiar with the compilation of the information and the interpretation of its meaning. We have found PR people pretty good at repeating what’s in a news release or in a report but often not real solid when it comes to probing questions beneath the release.
We called the DED PR person who wrote the news release, Keener Tippin, and asked for Marty Romitti’s phone number. Some time later we got a call from another PR person, John Fougere, who told us we couldn’t talk to Mr. Romitti but we could talk to him or maybe to the department director, perhaps, the next day. We opted for the department director. The next day now has passed and we have heard from neither the second PR guy or from the director of the department.
The concept of elevating PR people to be impenetrable walls between the media and people in state government who can and should provide their expertise and knowledge has been increasing at least since the Bob Holden administration. It got worse during the Matt Blunt administration and has degenerated even more under Jay Nixon’s reign.
It was rare not that many years ago when we called someone in state government directly and were told we had to go through the agency PR person, who in those days mainly wanted to know that the conversation was going to happen, often so the department director would not be surprised to see someone from his or her agency quoted in the press.
Even that was a point of contention from time to time. But it was usually resolved rather quickly.
Not today. The walls are up. The bureaucracy is carefully protected by the department spokesmen who, unfortunately, are not as all-knowing as they want us to believe.
The reporters at the Missourinet don’t think the public is well-served when the people in state government who have the best answers are put off limits by the stone wall builders.
Bob Priddy is the news director for the Missourinet.
