FEMA under fire for fake news conference

[fourier jr]

FEMA under fire for fake news conference
DEVLIN BARRETT

Associated Press

October 27, 2007 at 2:56 PM EDT

WASHINGTON — The homeland security chief on Saturday lashed into his own employees for staging a phony news conference at the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“I think it was one of the dumbest and most inappropriate things I've seen since I've been in government,” Michael Chertoff said.

“I have made unambiguously clear, in Anglo-Saxon prose, that it is not to ever happen again and there will be appropriate disciplinary action taken against those people who exhibited what I regard as extraordinarily poor judgment,” he added.

Asked specifically if he planned to fire anyone at FEMA, which is part of his department, Mr. Chertoff declined to say, citing personnel rules.

“There will be appropriate discipline,” he told reporters at a news conference with New York's governor where they announced an agreement on a driver's license plan.

Mr. Chertoff said he knew nothing about the matter until after it happened and that he “can't explain why it happened.”

The White House on Friday scolded FEMA for the faux press conference about assistance to victims of wildfires in southern California.

The agency — much maligned for its sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina over two years ago — arranged to have FEMA employees play the part of reporters at the event Tuesday and question Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson, the deputy director.

The questions were soft and gratuitous.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20071027.wfemafake1027/BNStory/International/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20071027.wfemafake1027

This is a new low! I'm still surprised Chertoff is going to do anything about it.

 

[turbo]

You're doin' a hell of a job, Cherty!

 

[Evo]

Weird, FEMA held a press conference and journalists didn't show up in time, so they had workers pose questions instead of waiting. Why didn't they state these were employees? Or just wait a bit longer?

 

[Astronuc]

there may have been some lessons learned from Katrina

umm - not at FEMA

US agency apologizes for news conference on fires
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N26366100.htm

WASHINGTON, Oct 26 (Reuters) - The U.S. government's main disaster-response agency apologized on Friday for having its employees pose as reporters in a hastily called news conference on California's wildfires that no news organizations attended.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, still struggling to restore its image after the bungled handling of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, issued the apology after The Washington Post published details of the Tuesday briefing.

"We can and must do better, and apologize for this error in judgment," FEMA deputy administrator Harvey Johnson, who conducted the briefing, said in a statement. "Our intent was to provide useful information and be responsive to the many questions we have received."

No actual reporter attended the news conference in person, agency spokesman Aaron Walker said.

A spokeswoman for Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who has authority over FEMA, called the incident "inexcusable and offensive to the secretary."

"We have made it clear that stunts such as this will not be tolerated or repeated," spokeswoman Laura Keehner said. She said the department was looking at the possibility of reprimanding those responsible.

FEMA’S FAKE 'NEWS CONFERENCE'
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/10/26/433236.aspx

On Tuesday, FEMA held what was called a "news briefing" on the California fires, but the questions asked did not come from reporters. They were asked instead by FEMA staffers.

. . . .

Why fake it? Apparently, the FEMA briefing was called with little lead-time and reporters didn't get there fast enough. Instead of acknowledging that reporters were not there they apparently pretended and even used the typical practice of calling a "last question."

The briefer, FEMA's Deputy Administrator Harvey Johnson, did not indicate that the questions were coming from staff who were in essence playing reporters. Six questions were asked and the phrasing and subject matter were not typical for a news briefing give and take.

Senior administration officials are looking into the matter and suggest the "intentions were good," but acknowledge that was not an appropriate "tactic."

Our taxes at work.

FEMA had given reporters about 15 minutes notice ahead of the conference.

 

[Astronuc]

This is a new low! I'm still surprised Chertoff is going to do anything about it.

Nobody but GW is allowed to be so blatantly stupid. They can't allow FEMA to show up Bush, now can they.

Why didn't they state these were employees?

Probably hoping that no one would notice.

Or just wait a bit longer?

That would have blown the plan. What if reporters asked challenging questions?

 

[Art]

It's hard to imagine the entire press corp arrived late by accident and that employees all spontaneously began asking 'gift' questions. It seems the whole thing was simply staged as a cynical PR exercise which went badly wrong when it was exposed.

Perhaps they were taking a leaf out of Chuchill's book, "History will be kind to me because I intend to write it"

 

[Moonbear]

Weird, FEMA held a press conference and journalists didn't show up in time, so they had workers pose questions instead of waiting. Why didn't they state these were employees? Or just wait a bit longer?

Worse, one of the news stories I read yesterday about it said the reporters were able to call in, but if they called in by teleconference, were told they could NOT ask questions. So, even if they couldn't get there, but could call in, they were barred from asking questions. Makes me think FEMA has something more to hide here if they had to pose as reporters to ask easy questions. They would have been better off simply saying they didn't have time for questions, and would just be giving a statement to the press to get out some information and would take questions after they were done dealing with the emergency situation.

 

[Art]

It's not such an uncommon practice in private industry. I know in one major corporation I worked when the president gave his annual talk half a dozen employees would have been given pre-scripted questions and they would then be 'randomly' chosen to ask those questions at the Q & A session at the end.

 

[edward]

It's not such an uncommon practice in private industry. I know in one major corporation I worked when the president gave his annual talk half a dozen employees would have been given pre-scripted questions and they would then be 'randomly' chosen to ask those questions at the Q & A session at the end.

This isn'ta major corporation. It is the Dumb and Bungle Corp

 

[Astronuc]

This isn'ta major corporation. It is the Dumb and Bungle Corp

No - it's the biggest organized crime syndicate in the world!

RICO!

 

[Ivan Seeking]

What is amazing to me is that we now live in a country that where something like this has been reduced to a human interest story.

I know... I fell asleep while reading Orwell and this has all been a dream! Yes! That's it.

whew...scary. Now where's my antifreeze?

 

[chemisttree]

And we want people like these overseeing our health care system? Keep them away from me!

 

[fourier jr]

DemocracyNow! says one of the fake reporters has been promoted to be head of public affairs at the office of the Director of National Intelligence.

 

[turbo]

DemocracyNow! says one of the fake reporters has been promoted to be head of public affairs at the office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The promotion has been withdrawn since the fake news conference has been outed.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Yeah, and they are talking about more heads rolling. That is encouraging for a change.

Too bad that heads didn't roll when Bush pulled this sort of stunt [phoney reporters], but at least we see some consequences here.

 

[kach22i]

The loyal Bushies have been doing the fake news questions for years...this is nothing new.

 

[chemisttree]

Even the Clinton administration has done this. What newsworthy here?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Even the Clinton administration has done this. What newsworthy here?

When did that happen?

 

[turbo]

When did that happen?

Well, whenever the Bushies do something slimy and underhanded, the stock Fox/Limbaugh retort is that Clinton did it too, did it earlier and did it more more frequently. We don't often see references, attibution, or (gasp!) actual facts, though. It will be interesting to see if administrative departments of the Clinton administration held fake news-conferences with staffers posing all the questions, and no press in attendance. Not holding my breath.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I was thinking more of the staged war news conference and planted "reporters". This latest FEMA episode is just another straw on the back.

 

[kach22i]

Well, whenever the Bushies do something slimy and underhanded, the stock Fox/Limbaugh retort is that Clinton did it too, did it earlier and did it more more frequently. We don't often see references, attibution, or (gasp!) actual facts, though. It will be interesting to see if administrative departments of the Clinton administration held fake news-conferences with staffers posing all the questions, and no press in attendance. Not holding my breath.

Their RWF (Right-Wing-Facts) typically end up being just rumors, rumors they started.

 

[chemisttree]

When did that happen?

It happens every time a http://www.aim.org/media_monitor/A3070_0_2_0_C/ is produced and distributed. I think every administration does it to some degree. Planting a relatively unknown reporter (Jeff Gannon, for example) in the press corps and choosing him to lob softball questions is another example. An interview (staged) with Donna Shalala describing the new Medicare benefits ended with "Lovell Brigham, reporting".

Why didn't you hear about that staged, fake news?

 

[chemisttree]

Well, whenever the Bushies do something slimy and underhanded, the stock Fox/Limbaugh retort is that Clinton did it too, did it earlier and did it more more frequently. We don't often see references, attibution, or (gasp!) actual facts, though.

You do now...

http://www.gao.gov/decisions/appro/302710.pdf
http://www.prwatch.org/node/3790
http://www.aim.org/aim_report/2866_0_4_0_C/
http://www.worldandi.com/public/1994/september/ci11.cfm

 

[turbo]

There is a big difference between handing out VNRs to broadcasters, which has been done for many years, and staging a phony question-and-answer press conference with absolutely no members of press present. The reporters who were permitted to call in on the 800 number only got conference-call-type audio and were not allowed to ask questions.

Saying that the Clinton administration (slick as they were) engaged in this level of duplicity just doesn't wash. Every administration plants "softball" questions with some of their allies in the White House Press Corps, but holding a "press conference" without allowing any reporters to attend is a new low, as is having FEMA staffers impersonate reporters. News coverage (as slack as it is at times) is pretty much the only way the citizenry can get some access to the workings of our government. Apparently the Bushies at FEMA would rather not have to answer real questions. Given some of the questions that REAL reporters might have asked, it is understandable.

You know, questions like "Has the deployment of regional National Guard units to Iraq and Afghanistan slowed the response to the wild-fires?" These are the people after all, who normally respond to regional disasters and bring close-positioned assets to bear to provide basic amenities, provide security, etc.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Yes, and I was talking about planting reporters who aren't reporters, such as here

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration has provided White House media credentials to a man who has virtually no journalistic background, asks softball questions to the president and his spokesman in the midst of contentious news conferences, and routinely reprints long passages verbatim from official press releases as original news articles on his website.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/02/02/white_house_friendly_reporter_under_scrutiny/

Also, the news conference where soldiers were given preprogrammed questions in what was supposed to be a legitimate question and answer session.

 

[chemisttree]

All true. But an interview that isn't an interview counts as well. That goes waay back. I originally responded to Kach22i's comment that the bushies "have been doing fake news questions for years". Fake interviews regarding controversial news items (like new Medicare rules) counts as well. My only point.

 

[chemisttree]

When did that happen?

Hillary doesn't disappoint!

http://blogs.usatoday.com/onpolitics/2007/11/clinton.html"