RT.com
In a
letter to President Obama, 38 journalism groups criticized his administration
for severely limiting access to federal agencies and a general
politically-motivated suppression of information despite the president’s pledge
of historic transparency.
Led
by the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), the groups said that efforts
by government officials to curb free-flow of news and information to the public
has reached a peak during the Obama administration following a similarly
stifling culture during prior president George W. Bush’s tenure in the White
House.
“Over
the past two decades, public agencies have increasingly prohibited staff from
communicating with journalists unless they go through public affairs offices or
through political appointees,” wrote SPJ president David Cuillier. “This trend
has been especially pronounced in the federal government. We consider these
restrictions a form of censorship — an attempt to control what the public is
allowed to see and hear.”
Cuillier
added that while agency personnel are kept mostly off limits to journalists, they
are ”free [to] speak to others — lobbyists, special-interest representatives,
people with money — without these controls and without public oversight.”
The
groups said that Obama’s recent lamentations of a growing cynicism of
government were peculiar given his administration’s broad efforts to shroud
official action and policy maneuvers in secrecy, all of which “undermines
public understanding of, and trust in, government,” the letter reads.
“You
need look no further than your own administration for a major source of that
frustration – politically driven suppression of news and information about
federal agencies. We call on you to take a stand to stop the spin and let the
sunshine in,” wrote Cuillier.
The
administration has previously dismissed similar sentiment from other journalism
and watchdog groups, including the White House Correspondents’ Association.
The
letter cites examples of alleged information censorship, including officials
repeatedly blocking reporters’ requests to talk with specific agency staff,
long delays in answering questions that disregard reporters’ deadlines,
officials’ proclivity for offering information anonymously or “on background,”
and federal agencies completely blackballing of certain journalists who write
critically of them.
“In
many cases, this is clearly being done to control what information journalists
— and the audience they serve — have access to. A survey found 40 percent of
public affairs officers admitted they blocked certain reporters because they
did not like what they wrote,” the letter stated.
The
groups recommended that the president should encourage all federal agencies and
their public employees to speak freely with reporters. In addition, they called
for an ombudsman to keep track of any suppression efforts.
“Create
an ombudsman to monitor and enforce your stated goal of restoring transparency
to government and giving the public the unvarnished truth about its workings,”
the letter said. “That will go a long way toward dispelling Americans’
frustration and cynicism before it further poisons our democracy.”
In
March, journalists at the Associated Press reported that their research
indicated that the US government has withheld more information from ever under
the authority of President Obama. Their findings were based mainly on how
difficult it is to successfully request documents from the White House through
the US Freedom of Information Act.
In
addition, the Obama administration has been criticized for using the punitive,
World War I-era Espionage Act to punish whistleblowers who leak classified
government information to journalists, in effect chilling press freedoms.
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