Public Officials Should Embrace Press Relations

Public Officials Should Embrace Press Relations

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

There are good reasons why we sometimes describe the press as the fourth estate. Its influence has been compared historically to powerful forces of governance at work in both the French and American revolutions.  In fact, one of the earliest histories of our revolutionary war, written in 1789, declares that “the pen and the press had a merit equal to the sword” in establishing our independence.   Tempering the three checks and balances that reside in our executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government, a fourth factor derives from the press or media.   

Over the last few months, new terms have entered the lexicon of the fourth estate.  Two such terms are alternative facts and fake news.  Credit for these words belongs to President Donald Trump and his staff who use this vocabulary to try to convince the public that the media are lying or inventing news to discredit the President’s initiatives.   Presidential claims are baldly asserted by tweets, or more recently by selective denial of invitations to the press secretary’s briefings.

Trying to make the media a scapegoat is like spitting into the winds of more than 200 years of American history.  By today’s standards, colonial connections between the press and politicians are shocking.      

According to historian Eric Burns in his book Infamous Scribblers, political leaders funded and launched newspapers to make sure their messages were publicized.  Shadowy politicians subsidized the editors’ income when it fell short.  Publishers of friendly papers got jobs as postmasters or as favored printers of all kinds of government documents and related advertising. Many publications brimmed with bias, venom, exaggeration and outright lies (aka fake news).  Often the authors’ imaginary pen names gave their rhetoric free rein.   Libelous claims were rampant with no threat of being sued for slander.   

The editors of colonial news rarely backed down and seldom retracted their statements.  Their extreme and often unreliable opinions were expected by politicians who saw this as kindling for their own literary fires. The press was thought simply to be doing its job. 

It should be no surprise that the First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees a free press and is intended to prevent government from tampering with the distribution of information and opinions.  Also, recently as the 1960s, the Supreme Court reinforced press freedom to pillory politicians with little fear of prosecution for libel or slander.    In short, the legally protected and lucrative momentum of American journalism works against suppression.

 As a former school district leader and workshop presenter and spokesperson for school boards statewide, I practiced and preached the following relevant guidance:   

First, look at any press initiative as a positive opportunity.  Second, build ongoing and open two-way communication with all media outlets.  Do not play favorites or target villains.  Evenhanded treatment can become an effective reciprocal relationship if trust is nurtured.  Third, stick with verifiable information from reasonably reliable sources.  Fourth, don’t overexplain; answer only what is asked.  Fourth, never say “no comment”.  Admit when you don’t know something, and promise as best you can to follow-up with verification.    

Public officials should avoid acting defensively by insisting that fake news is being published, or by trying to punish or bully the media.  After all, where public communication is concerned, the press holds nearly all the cards.  Those cards are rooted in our history and the public’s inclination to believe what is published must be true.  As Thomas Jefferson famously observed, “…Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter.”