Access to federal scientists

On his first day in office in January, President Barack Obama went to work for science writers as he issued a directive on transparency and access to government information. The new president issued an Executive Memo on "Openness and Transparency," reversing a Bush-era rule that favored secrecy over disclosure for requests filed under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

 

On his first day in office in January, President Barack Obama went to work for science writers as he issued a directive on transparency and access to government information. The new president issued an Executive Memo on "Openness and Transparency," reversing a Bush-era rule that favored secrecy over disclosure for requests filed under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Obama turned the clock back to Clinton Attorney General Janet Reno, who said information should be released unless it could cause "forseeable harm." The Bush Administration, in contrast, had urged agencies to consider any "legal basis" for withholding information. The message released by Obama on his first day in office was that government ought to be "transparent," "participatory," and "collaborative."

Impeding journalists' ability to communicate with federal scientists was a matter of policy during the Bush administration, one of several ways in which that administration undermined science in government. I was involved in several Union of Concerned Scientists Scientific Integrity division reports documenting how government undermined science, and how federal scientists were frustrated, to say the least, with the situation.

For a report called "Freedom to Speak?," the Union of Concerned Scientists documented interference by federal agencies (including NASA, NOAA, FWS, OSHA, and CDC) with scientists' ability to communicate their research findings with journalists.

"A reporter specifically asked to speak to me and was told I was unavailable," reported a NASA scientist. "Requests for specific biologists are given to the field supervisor who generally handles them by himself or with the help of a public affairs person or supervisor, rarely the appropriate biologist," said a scientist at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Some scientists approached the policy creatively: "I ignore the policy and speak directly with the media when I feel it is important to do so (which is often!)" said a Center for Disease Control (CDC) scientist.

The "Freedom to Speak?" report looked at agency media policies and noted an uneven landscape. Some agencies actively tried to keep a short leash on scientists for message control. Some agencies' media policies specifically advised scientists to route all communication with journalists through agency minders. Other agencies lacked a clear policy, or enforced controls unevenly, resulting in harsh treatment of scientists working in sensitive areas such as climate science and reproductive health.

Agencies' attempts to build walls between researchers and journalists were but one aspect of the problem. The Union of Concerned Scientists' website "The A to Z Guide to Political Interference in Science" (of which I am a contributing editor) documents distortion, suppression, and misuse of science in all corners of the government. Some of the most egregious cases involved climate science, where Bush Administration appointees seemed determined to bend science to fit political goals.

Communications between federal scientists and journalists started to improve after climate guru James Hansen went public with accusations that he was being "muzzled" by NASA. A few other prominent climate scientists also spoke out. Science writers including Andy Revkin of the New York Times helped bring attention to the problem by covering these incidents in major newspapers.

In 2006 NASA revised its media policy to emphasize its "commitment to open . . . dialogue with the public" and make clear that NASA scientists may speak freely with the media. The following year the U.S. Department of Commerce, which oversees the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), issued a new media policy modeled on NASA's, which the Union of Concerned Scientists called "a step in the right direction."

The Union of Concerned Scientists gave the Center for Disease Control a high grade on its media policy. In practice, though, the agency did not always meet the policy's high standards. A CDC scientist said that "with highly charged issues the agency has buckled to political pressure" in spite of good media policies.

By the time the Association of Health Care Journalists sent a letter in March urging the Obama Administration to end the practice of making reporters go through public affairs offices to arrange interviews, some of the worst policies had already been improved, at least on paper.

During interviews for the Union of Concerned Scientists reports, I heard several scientists say that public affairs offices provided an important service. Many scientists don't like to deal with the public or the media or aren't very skilled at it, and they are grateful to have professionals doing that job. Scientists wanted control over their message (no one should be changing wording in a way that alters the meaning of the science) and wanted the option to communicate directly with media when desired (no public affairs officer should be saying that a scientist is unavailable for an interview as a means of suppressing that scientist's research results). From the scientists' perspective, the problem was not so much the existence of public affairs offices as their motive: message control, or assisting scientists to get their information out in a professional manner?

Federal agencies are tremendous bureaucracies difficult to change overnight, but President Obama has actively set a tone from the top that supports openness in communication with government scientists. He has also emphasized respect for science, and a determination to make science, rather than politics, the basis for his administration's decisions. All of this should encourage managers at federal science-based agencies to improve the flow of information to journalists.

Jennifer Freeman is a freelance writer in New York City. In addition to work for the Union of Concerned Scientists Scientific Integrity Division, she wrote "Science 101: Ecology" and is currently devoting herself to the Green Schools Alliance.

(NASW members can read the rest of the Fall 2009 ScienceWriters by logging into the members area.)

November 7, 2009

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