Good Lord. Control freaks in state government now have “protocols.”
As I have done for 40 years, I called a legislative committee during the session to get some information for a column. They always have been good sources because they write the bills and do the research on them.
I got the House Education Committee and told the telephone answerer what I wanted. She told me I had to speak to the “press office” and transferred me – to the Speaker's office.
The puzzled person in that office transferred me back to the education committee where, after some griping on my part, I was allowed to speak personally to the committee staff director – a great honor, of course.
When I told her what I wanted (some mundane detail on education funding), I was informed that the Legislature now has protocols and that one protocol is that I must speak to the press office, not directly to the person who (presumably) actually knows what she is talking about.
Having worked in the governor's press office, I explained to her that would involve a day of runaround as the press office called her, got the information I wanted and called me back to give it to me. This, of course, would magnify the possibility of error and inevitably produce new questions that would start the process all over.
She patiently replied that they have a protocol.
I don't have any clout anymore and I don't know many committee staff members, as I once did, so I'm out of luck in such cases unless I can get one of our legislators to ferret out the information for me.
I realize no one cares about the trials and tribulations of reporters in their quest for information.
But I'm wondering if the Capital Press Corps is now frozen out in the same way in their day-to-day news coverage. And, if so, why they would put up with it, especially with the fetish they have for “government in the sunshine.”
I understand the need politicians have to tailor and control “the message.” But the simple recitation of information is not part of the political message – I hope.
It isn't just state government. When I was a police reporter 50 years ago -- as I told a group of retired cops in a speech last year -- I knew all the cops, read their reports, and raced to crime scenes to interview them.
Nowadays, I don't think many reporters know any cops except the PR person who spoon feeds them whatever information the police want them to have.
For the life of me, I can't grasp what harm would come from the media talking directly to the person closest to, or the most knowledgeable about, the information needed for a news story.
But that's just me. I only have a hunger for facts and a growing dislike of bureaucracy. I didn't come equipped with protocols, or the patience to tolerate them.
Lloyd Brown was in the newspaper business nearly 50 years, beginning as a copy boy and retiring as editorial page editor of the Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville. After retirement he served as a policy analyst for Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
