Reporters Seek Easier Access to Obama’s Federal Staff
by Jennifer Brown

Members of the Association of Health Care Journalists (AHCJ) aren’t happy with the hoops they have to jump through to talk with Obama’s federal staff, and have asked the President to end certain restriction so that journalists can have an easier time getting answers from government, says firstamendment.org.

On March 4, 2009, the AHCJ sent out a press release arguing that the policies that require journalists to get approval from public affairs officers before they’re allowed to interview government agencies has got to go, according to the AHCJ website.

The AHCJ also sent a letter to Obama on Feb. 26, 2009, outlining the problems with the current interview process, claiming it hampers transparency and also keeps the public in the dark on subjects that citizens have the right to know. The AHCJ went on to ask the President to prohibit the use of permission forms for interviews, and to stop public affairs officers from monitoring interviews.

The AHCJ argues in their press release that by keeping this kind protocol when it comes to interviewing government agencies brings about a chilling effect to the country. The AHCJ claims that public affairs officers have ignored or denied interviews with journalists, and have also have given a long lag time between granting the interview with the government agency and actually going through with it. The AHJC also says that having public affairs officers monitor interviews prohibits federal staff to give valuable “off-the-record” information to journalists, which again keeps the public from knowing pertinent information about our government.

Despite this, the AHCJ told firstamendmentcenter.org that they recognize that Obama called for greater transparency of the government when he first took office, and hope that he’ll listen to their requests.

Question:

1. Do you think that these public affairs officers are actually bordering on being unconstitutional because they’re withholding or making it hard for journalist to get certain information that the public has a right to know, therefore chilling political speech? What kind of suit could the AHCJ bring against the federal agencies that make it extremely difficult for journalists to get information?