President Barack Obama has earned higher marks than his predecessor, George W. Bush, from journalists for making his administration more open and transparent. But this fact belies the feeling among many who cover science, health and the environment that federal agencies continue to hamper efforts to report on Washington.

 

When the Obama administration began, things were looking up, as key officials like Lisa Jackson at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) solicited feedback from journalists on how the new leadership could improve openness in government.

 

“Unfortunately, the honeymoon was short-lived,” writes Curtis Brainard for the Columbia Journalism Review.

 

By January 2010, the EPA was demanding the media treat all agency employees, with the exception of Jackson, as background sources only, meaning they could not be quoted in stories.

 

Things got worse from there. After the EPA launched two websites to solicit public comments about how to make the agency more transparent, the Society of Environmental Journalists submitted nine recommendations. For that, the media group was “scolded” by EPA’s press secretary who threatened to cut off communications between the agency and the organization.

 

There have also been problems at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which was forced to rescind orders that required journalists and FDA employees to obtain permission from higher-ups before an interview could take place, and imposed a policy that insisted that members of the press office be allowed to listen in on interviews. Earlier this year, the FDA stirred up more controversy by trying to insist that embargoed reports could not be shown to outside experts before the reports were published even if the embargo was respected.

 

“Today, a slew of reporters complain that such gag orders are still a problem and that transparency and access to information is often just as bad, if not worse in some cases, than it was under the Bush administration,” according to Brainard.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Transparency Watch: A Closed Door (by Curtis Brainard, Columbia Journalism Review)

Guidelines on the Provision of Information to the News Media (Department of Health & Human Services)

Controversial FDA Press Officer Finally Goes Away (by David Wallechinsky and Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)