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Highway Safety Agency Silences Engineers
nbauman writes "Nichole R. Nason, administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, put a new rule into effect that NHTSA officials, including scientists and engineers, are no longer allowed to be quoted by reporters, according to the New York Times. If the officials want to say anything it has to be off the record. The only one they can quote is Nason herself. However, she refused to be interviewed about the no-attribution policy."
You're partially right that the "official voice" should be a sanctioned message, but a blanket ban on all underlings being quoted is a bit fascist.
I work for the federal government, and reporters conduct interviews with our staff quite often. These interviews are usually arranged through a public affairs official, and I'm sure someone saying something not inline with the "official voice" would face reprimand.
However, we can also expect (in most cases) whistle-blower protection if we report improprieties, especially after efforts to correct them through official channels.
I used to be involved in civic government as an elected official. Within days of being elected I was forbidden to speak to the press as the official voice of City Council was the Mayor.
Of course, in my instance, I told them to shut the fuck up and if they even remotely thought that I was going to never speak to the media they may as well go fuck themselves, because I'll talk to whomever I goddamn want.
There were of course certain things that legally I could not discuss, which was a different matter....but they learnt quickly that I wasn't going to sit back & let myself be fucked on the council table under some self-righteous gag order.
This to me is really no better....government NEEDS to be as transparent as possible, or otherwise, bottom line, its the citizens that get fucked. This gag order for the NHTSA is no better than what the rest of council tried to do to me - and if I was employed by the NHTSA I would gladly put my opinions of right and wrong over my job, and tell them to go fuck themselves.
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If I'm wrong or missing something please let me know.
"Speaking on background" doesn't mean that the employee can be quoted without named attribution, it means that the employee can't be quoted period. In the journalism game, background means that the source proivdes information, but that what the source actually said cannot be repeated through quotes. Thus, the reporter has to paraphrase the content to be used, and anybody who disagrees with the source or the paraphrased information has far greater room to maneuver, because the published information effectively becomes hearsay.
See the first paragraph of this article: http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/08/16/real.id/ind ex.html
Yes, exactly like them. The DOD is not a corp, but their position was that they were invading.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"