Government press secretaries, current and former, reacted in various ways to last week’s cover story about their profession. By Jeremy Alford. Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Louisiana’s statewide departments and cabinet agencies will spend more than $4.4 million this year to underwrite the salaries of 72 press secretaries and media professionals. Another $640,000 will be spent on their related operations.
These were the over-arching findings of a report that was unveiled last week in this publication and penned by this writer.
Sam Irwin, a freelancer writer and photographer who also serves as the press secretary for the Department of Agriculture and Forestry, said it exemplified a journalist “arriving for an interview with their story already written,” borrowing a line from the story itself.
In particular, Irwin had a beef with a section of the report that cited ways press teams are navigating around the mainstream media to get their messages out. Here’s the rub, as he saw it: “The Department of Agriculture will put up roughly $100,000 publishing what it calls ‘Market Bulletins.’”
Irwin argued that 13,000 subscribers pay $10 a year for the publication to be printed and mailed to them. And in that respect, it should have been noted in the report that the supporting dollars are self-generated. He also said that most of the Marketing Bulletin is made up of free classified ads for cattle, tractors and so on.
However, the first two pages of the 112-year-old newsletter are usually set aside for stories and press releases containing plenty of quotes from Commissioner Mike Strain. The pages are his vehicle to get out a message without having to deal with reporters. If anything, it shows the department is proactive in promoting itself.
Bob Johannessen, former communications director for the Department of Health and Hospitals, commented that “Alford does not address how he or other reporters would be able to effectively cover state government without the assistance of a [public information officer].”
This is true. It goes without saying that PIOs and press secretaries are important to this thing we do. It would be difficult without them — sometimes; it just depends on the story. But it would certainly be boring; they’re the ones who pass along off-the-record stories for their bosses and tip off reporters to big scoops.
On more than one occasion they’ve saved me on deadline. I’ve also been led on by a few and provided with inaccurate information. There’s the bad and the good, mostly the latter. But as noted in last week’s story, “a department head without a flack nowadays is like a 4-year-old on the beach without sunscreen.”
Speaking of DHH, its initial reply to our public records request for media-related salaries produced two names making salaries totaling $100,484. The accuracy of that list, however, has come into question. In a follow-up request, the department’s attorney said Tom Gasparoli, who makes $71,000, was mistakenly left off. There’s also Kristen M. Sunde, who recently coordinated a story for New Orleans’ Gambit and held a title connected to the “Bureau of Media and Communications.” A PIO for the department says she filled that role only temporarily as new hands were brought on.
It’s an interesting twist. While many media professionals wanted to make sure it was known that they do much more than handle press requests, here’s an example of someone being pulled into the fray who typically never talks to journalists. That’s all to say it takes a lot to keep a government media outfit afloat.
Another press secretary from a bygone era of Louisiana politics offered these words on the classical relationship between hack and flack: “We may not always like the story you’re doing, but in the end we respect that you’re doing it.” Without question, that works the other way around, too. At least on good days.
Jeremy Alford can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
MAY 17 Here's a column from James Gill, this time in the Advocate. Gill, who has jumped ship from the Picayune, writes about the absurdity of dueling polls in this post. The numbers are so wildly different, it is obvious that both sides are "cooking the books," he writes. In particular, he looks at Sen. Mary Landrieu, and how her recent actions in DC have been received by those polled. Gill's acerbic, amusing prose is a welcome addition to a paper so conservative as to be occasionally lacking in personality.
MAY 17 Blogger Tom Aswell continues delivering bombshells about the state education department and Gov. Jindal's education "reform" efforts. In this post, he reports that students in the Shreveport area have been signed up for a charter school without their knowledge or consent. Most interesting to Aswell is how this Texas-based charter (with ties to GOP types) got the personal student information it has, if the students didn't give it.
MAY 17 This post by JR Ball in the Baton Rouge Business Report is an interesting tongue-in-cheek look at recent Baton Rouge economic development efforts. Among the items he examines is the idea that gaining a Costco makes BR a "world-class city." (Really? All you need is a different brand of Sam's? MK!) This effort, and other recent ones, are all built on the taxpayer's back, with tax zones, tax incentives and tax rebates, Ball writes.
MAY 17 Blogger CB Forgotston is critical of the legislature's reliance on a revenue-estimating committee's decision to include projected tax amnesty income in this year's forecast. That's a problem, CB posts, because the deadline for these people to pay their taxes is June 30, 2014. So when do you think these people who haven't paid taxes in years are going to pay their taxes? Surely not before June 30, and that means the money won't be there for this year's budget, he argues.
MAY 17 Here's an interesting blog out of California by a Hollywood writer, attorney and academic named Brian Alan Lane. He blogs about higher ed, and was a whistle-blower in a scandal over false credentials. In this post, he takes aim at LSU's new top dog, King Alexander. It's convoluted and a little confusing, but it sure makes Alexander a lot more interesting than he was yesterday.
MAY 17 Blogger Robert Mann writes about the LSU Board's refusal to allow Dr. Fred Cerise to testify before the legislature about Gov. Jindal's plan to close down all the state's charity hospitals and dump the poor on the private system. It's hard to imagine anyone more qualified than Cerise to testify about that, so why would anyone try to prevent him doing so? Mann thinks it is because the powers that be aren't interested in hearing any truth about the plan.
MAY 17 This post on the Louisiana Sinkhole Bugle, a blog that notes developments in the Bayou Corne and Jefferson Island salt domes, talks about a proposed expansion of the salt dome storage under Lake Peigneur in Iberia Parish. Residents are working against it for several reasons, including two biggies: the sinkhole disaster in Bayou Corne and the continuing, unexplained bubbling on the surface of the Lake.
MAY 17 NOLA police arrested more people Thursday accused of either being involved in the Mother's Day shooting or hiding the suspect afterward, this Gambit story reports. The NOLA police chief said he suspects the whole thing was gang-related and throws out a challenge to the gangs: he's got informants now, he says, and he knows a lot more than the gangs want him to know. The people who live in the neighborhoods terrorized by gangs are ready to talk, he says.
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