FDA Policy Makes Journalist ‘Watchdogs into Lapdogs’: Analysis
New York University journalism professor Charles Seife says that by holding embargoed briefings for select reporters on major issues conditional that the reporters not seek comment from anyone else before the embargo is lifted, the agency is turning journalist watchdogs into lapdogs, and making reporters into stenographers. In a lengthy analysis for Scientific American, Seife paints a grim picture of FDA and many other scientific agencies and organizations holding out the promise of information to hand-picked reporters in return for the reporters’ agreement to not seek independent comment or verification.
At issue is what is known to reporters as a “close-hold embargo.” Many scientific stories are embargoed for release 24 to 48 hours in the future to allow reporters time to read through the often complicated material and prepare their story. Seife points out that such embargoes are the reason that many news outlets seem to have the same story at the same time. A close-hold embargo goes even further by instructing participating reporters who have been chosen by the news source that they cannot discuss the information with any other sources before the embargo has ended.
Many experts interviewed by Seife criticize the practice as being harmful to objective journalism. “I think embargoes that attempt to control sourcing are dangerous because they limit the role of the reporter whose job it is to do a full look at a subject,” says former New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan. “It’s really inappropriate for a source to be telling a journalist who he or she can and can’t talk to.”
Although FDA has a formal communications policy against such close-hold embargoes, Seife writes, there are indications that the agency continues to use the technique. What had been secret became public in 2014 when a New York Times story on a close-hold briefing covering new tobacco rules included a sentence that “FDA officials gave journalists an outline of the new rules on Wednesday but required that they not talk to industry or public health groups until after Thursday’s formal release of the document.” Seife says that Times reporter Sabrina Tavernise told Sullivan, “I felt like I wanted to be clear with readers. Usually you would have reaction in a story like this, but in this case there wasn’t going to be any.” Tavernise received an angry e-mail from an FDA press officer complaining about “the tone of your article and the swipe you took at the embargo in the paper when after combing through the coverage no one else felt the need to do so in quite that way.”
Seife says that documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests “now paint a disturbing picture of the tactics that are used to control the science press. For example, FDA assures the public that it is committed to transparency, but the documents show that, privately, the agency denies many reporters access, including ones from major outlets such as Fox News, and even deceives them with half-truths to handicap them in their pursuit of a story. At the same time, FDA cultivates a coterie of journalists whom it keeps in line with threats. And the agency has made it a practice to demand total control over whom reporters can and can’t talk to after the news has broken, deaf to protests by journalistic associations and media ethicists and in violation of its own written policies.”
Science journalist Vincent Kiernan, who is George Mason University dean, tells Seife that “journalists have ceded the power to the scientific establishment. I think it’s interesting and somewhat inexplicable, knowing journalists in general as being people who don’t like ceding power.”
While embargoes were first embraced by science reporters in the 1920s, Seife writes, scientific institutions soon realized that they could be used to manipulate the timing and, to a lesser extent, the nature of press coverage. The result is a system in which scientific institutions increasingly control the press corps. “They’ve gotten the upper hand in this relationship,” Kiernan says, “and journalists have never taken it back.”
Seife describes the journalistic uproar that occurred when FDA first tried a close-hold embargo in 2011 over the introduction of new medical device rules. “Even reporters who had been dealing with FDA for years were incredulous,” he says. When one asked the press office if it really intended to forbid communication with outside sources, the agency’s Karen Riley replied, ‘It goes without saying that the embargo means YOU CANNOT call around and get comment ahead of the 1 p.m. embargo.’” The dust-up led to a new 6/2011 FDA media policy, Seife says, that officially killed the close-hold embargo. The policy said that “a journalist may share embargoed material provided by FDA with non-journalists or third parties to obtain quotes or opinions prior to an embargo lift provided that the reporter secures agreement from the third party to uphold the embargo.”
However, Seife contends that the agency continues to use the close-hold embargo in violation of its own policy but it is hard to tell specifically when it happens because “it is a secret that neither the reporters who have been given special access nor the scientific institution that sets up the deal wants to be revealed. The public hears about it only when the journalist chooses to reveal the information” (as the Times reporter did in 2014).
“Absent any indications from the agency, it is anyone’s guess whether the close-hold embargo is still in use at FDA and, if so, how frequently,” Seife concludes. “Unfortunately, FDA refused to answer any questions. Because I am suing the agency for access to documents about embargo practice at FDA, the press office, in a statement that failed to answer any specific questions, said that news embargos ‘allow reporters time to develop their articles on complex matters in an informed, accurate way,’ and that its use of embargoes conforms to relevant government guidelines and best practices. The press office referred all questions to the FDA’s Office of Chief Counsel, which did not supply answers.”
He says that Scientific American attempted to contact many reporters believed to have agreed to an FDA close-hold embargo, but none could shed any light on the issue. Some explicitly refused to speak, some failed to respond to queries, and two said they could not recall ever agreeing to such an embargo.
“No matter how rare it might be,” Seife writes, “there is documentary evidence of it happening multiple times, and each instance since 2011 is a violation of FDA’s official media policy, which explicitly bans close-hold embargoes. This policy still stands, just as it did before the last close-hold embargo. The smart money says that the agency’s unofficial policy still stands, too, and the favoritism and close-hold embargoes continue. It is apparently too sweet an arrangement for FDA simply to walk away.”
The article talks about how the practice is on the rise in other fields of journalism, such as business reporting. And it notes that as much blame as government and other institutions bear for attempting to control the press through such means, the primary responsibility lies with journalists themselves. “Even a close-hold embargo wouldn’t constrain a reporter without the reporter’s consent,” Seife declares. “The reporter can simply wait until the embargo expires and speak to outside sources, albeit at the cost of filing the story a little bit later.”