PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker’s administration has imposed strict controls on her staff’s interaction with reporters, which can hinder coverage of city government.
In January, KYW Newsradio contacted the fire department to confirm the address of a fire, in order to tell listeners to avoid the area. The spokesperson said she could not provide the information without first getting permission from the managing director’s office and mayor’s press office.
This policy had been laid out in an email from Managing Director Adam Thiel saying — in capital letters — “NO MEDIA INTERVIEWS, SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS, OR STATEMENTS OF ANY KIND UNTIL/UNLESS APPROVED IN ADVANCE BY MAYOR’S COMMUNICATIONS.” It immediately ran into trouble from librarians who alerted patrons they might not be able to post information about events or changes to hours.
At the time, the mayor’s spokesman Joe Grace said the email had been misinterpreted. A short time later, police, fire and the Office of Emergency Management were permitted to speak without advance permission.
However, the gag stayed on others, even cabinet-level commissioners, stifling the flow of information that reporters depend on to give the public an accurate picture of how the government performs.
The control of the message extends beyond limiting who can say what. Last month, after the press office sent out an email saying the mayor had no public events, it invited two — and only two — media outlets to a public event, effectively excluding all other coverage.
Grace says he is done talking about the policy because it is, in his words, “inside baseball,” meaning it isn’t of interest to anyone except reporters. But privately, communications staff in other departments complain it adds time and extra steps to their job of keeping the public aware of what their government is doing.