MedPage Today: Should reporters tell readers when a PIO listens in?
Last week, the Covering Health blog of the Association of Health Care Journalists reported that MedPage Today, an online news service for physicians, will henceforth alert readers when a public information staffer listens in on an interview.
Peggy Peck, vice president and executive editor of MedPage Today, said that reporters had been instructed to use phrases such as “in a telephone interview monitored by a public information officer.”As Peck told Covering Health:
“If a source’s comments are monitored by a press officer, then the person may not have been speaking freely,” said Peggy Peck, vice president and executive editor. “That’s information readers should have.”
…Peck emphasized that a reporter’s goal should be to avoid having a press officer listening to calls or attending face-to-face interviews. “But if that is the only way a researcher will talk, we need to let our readers know that,” said Peck’s memo to eight reporters.
Peck is a member of AHCJ’s Right-to-Know Committee. Covering Health says her decision to institute the rule grew out of the committee’s efforts to “end interference by public information officers in newsgathering, especially in the federal government.”
I’ve long been troubled by the insistence of some “public” information officers (they are paid to work for their institutions, not the public, although the interests of the two can sometimes coincide) to listen in or sit in on interviews. Even if they don’t say a word, their presence inevitably changes the interview.
Imagine telling colleagues about the last story you wrote, and what you had to do to get it. Now imagine the same conversation with your colleagues while your editor–on whom your livelihood depends–listens in. I don’t imagine myself dissembling in either set of circumstances, but I can certainly imagine myself telling the story a little differently in each case.
The point is not that information officers are always trying to limit or shape the interview, although that clearly happens. The point is not to challenge the integrity of information officers, although, like reporters, some are better at what they do than are others. The point is that the presence of an institutional representative changes the interview. And we owe it to out readers to conduct interviews without that presence whenever possible. Information officers, presumably, would not want a journalist leaning over them when they are doing their work; we merely ask the same.
I must admit, however, that it never occurred to me to say, in my stories, that a PIO listened in.
I think Peck is on to something. I plan to make this a rule from now on in my own writing, and I suggest you do the same, whether or not your editor asks you to.
- Paul Raeburn
June 22nd, 2010 at 6:00 pm
I like it. But as a PIO for a little while (who never listened in on conversations..weird!!!) I suggest you lay out the ground rules in advance….that you will describe the interview that way…so the subject and PIO have the forewarning and can decide how to proceed.
June 23rd, 2010 at 8:57 pm
And does the reporter also call it out if the scientist *requested* a PIO listening in? It’s not like reporters have this perfect reputation of always being fair (or competent). Would a reporter be willing to include in the story “in a telephone interview monitored by a public information officer because the researcher didn’t trust the reporter to quote him accurately”? Or perhaps quote the PIO when she throws out a particularly enlightening analogy that makes the reporter’s story clearer? I’m not saying it happens often, but isn’t the point of this to be fair and keep the reader informed?
June 23rd, 2010 at 9:40 pm
It’s also very serious censorship when reporters have to go through PIOs to be allowed to speak to experts or other people. That’s monitoring also. When a person’s employer or even just the PIO knows who spoke to which reporter there are regularly many things the person will not tell the reporter. Some times solid facts that would show why the on-the-record story is deceptive.
June 24th, 2010 at 3:35 pm
It’s a very interesting thing to think about, and I agree with almost all the points you make, Paul. But I don’t think your analogy about talking with colleagues is exactly right.
A casual conversation is not equivalent to an interview with a reporter. I think if you’re talking with a reporter about your work, you have to have in the back of your mind that your editor/spouse/future boss could end up seeing what you say. Granted, it still might be a different conversation than if that editor/spouse/whoever is there in the room with you, but I still don’t think the analogy quite holds because any source may be doing some self-editing when they speak to a reporter that they wouldn’t if they were just chatting with colleagues.
June 24th, 2010 at 3:52 pm
Thanks for the comments. As David point out, establishing explicit ground rules is always the best policy, so nobody can later claim to have been misled. Mary raises a couple of interesting points. I see no problem quoting a PIO, and indeed they are quoted all the time. And while sources might want a PIO to be involved, that is no guarantee of a better or safer story, as Gen. McChrystal found out this week.
Kathryn makes a fair point that PIOs can shape a story even if they don’t listen in. Lila is right, too, that my analogy wasn’t perfect. Which is disappointing, because I’ve been looking for the perfect analogy for years, and I thought I finally had it…
Cheers, all!
June 24th, 2010 at 8:36 pm
Oh, did you really mean to use editor as editor in that analogy, Paul? I thought you meant “boss” and you were equating PIOs with bosses (which is giving us way too much power).
And I feel so bad for McChrystal. *I* would not want to spend two weeks on a bus with a reporter doing a story on me, and I’m hardly of importance in the grand scheme of things. There’s no way anyone can come out looking good in that situation.