When I was an investigative reporter for The News & Observer I ran into some government public information officers who put the public’s interest above the interest of the politician or political appointee they worked for. They told the truth. Sometimes, at the risk their job, they went off the record and gave me a road map, so to speak, of wrongdoing in their agency.
But not many.
I had to battle constantly with government PIOs to get access to records which the public, and The News & Observer, were entitled by state law to have.
And they often ran interference for officials I wanted to talk to.
Sometimes they would ask me to pose questions in writing, which I did not do. Usually they insisted on sitting in on interviews, which I could not prevent. In a few instances they tape-recorded my interview and made a transcript to prepare other officials I planned to question.
In press releases they sent to the media they sometimes made up quotes and attributed them to their boss, an offense that would get a newspaper reporter fired.
In one instance a PIO fixed an error in a press release after the information had been published in The N&O, to make it look like the reporter who rewrote the press release had made the mistake.
In my day newspaper reporters sometimes, OK, often, referred to PIOs as “flacks.” Here’s an example of the kind of stuff flacks did that drove me crazy:
I called a guy in the Department of Administration that I had talked to on, and off, the record for years. The administration had just changed, we had a new governor, the department had a new flack, and the guy said he couldn’t talk to me without the PIO’s permission.
Here we go again.
I called the new flack and I said, words to the effect:
“Would you do me a big, big favor? There’s a fellow in your department who has been doing his job since you were a little boy who says he can’t talk to me about his job without your permission. Would you mind calling him and telling him, ‘It’s OK. You can talk about your job.'”
And the flack said, words to this effect, “Oh, Pat, I’m so sorry this happened. That’s something left over from the last administration. I’ll call him right away and fix this.”
A few minutes later I called my source again and asked him if the flack had called and given him permission to talk.
“Yea,” he said, “he called. He said to answer your questions but don’t elaborate.”
I interviewed the man and, next morning, I called him again with a couple of follow up questions. He told me, in effect, to make it snappy because he had already spent hours dealing with me.
“What are you talking about,” I said. “We talked for less than 30 minutes.”
And then he explained.
“After we got through talking the public information officer made me write down every question you asked and every answer I gave.”
NOTE1: I tried never to say anything good or bad to a PIO’s boss about something they had done for me or to me. I figured if I complimented a good one, they might get reprimanded. And if I complained about a bad one, they might get a raise.
NOTE2: Over the years I met several PIOs who did their best to serve the public. I’ll name one, who is dead now. Juan Santos, a PIO for the Department of Labor, was a truth teller and a friend.
Coming Friday: Unfortunately, My Lips Are Sealed
