Last Word First

Last Word First: Flack Attack

by Jeremy Alford

Government press secretaries, current and former, reacted in various ways to last week's cover story about their profession.

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.

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 [email protected].