FEMA Stages Fake Press Conference

After the disastrous hurricanes that drowned New Orleans and the Gulf Coast two years ago, the Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA] became synonymous with incompetence On Friday, the agency moved from incompetent to deceitful. Having given journalists 15 minutes’ notice of a press conference dealing with the fires in California, FEMA went ahead with the conference despite the absence of any member of the media. FEMA employees asked questions as if they were independent journalists. Can this bunch sink any lower?

The White House, naturally, disavowed any knowledge of the deception. This is, of course, the same administration that went to war over weapons of mass destruction that didn’t exist. And it is one that had its own shill in the White House press corps (Jeff Gannon of Talon News, a/k/a James Dale Guckert). Also, it is the same president who announced that FEMA chief Michael Brown was doing “a heckuva job” in salvaging New Orleans, when in fact, he was doing nothing right at all.

What is particularly disappointing about this episode is the fact that it was entirely unnecessary. FEMA believed it needed to get some information out and that a news conference was the best way to do that. Even the most diligent reporter needs a bit more notice than 15 minutes to get to a presser. If there was information that really did need to get out right away, a statement from FEMA to CNN or Fox or MSNBC would have done the trick. A phone call would have sufficed. Then, a press conference could have followed in an hour or two.

FEMA and the president’s people are saying the decision to fake the news conference was a lapse in judgment. That is probably not far from the truth. However, it does make one wonder just what sort of people are making the decisions there. Pretending that a staffer is a reporter from an independent news service is being untruthful. It is never acceptable for an agency like FEMA to deceive. Its future effectiveness requires it to possess a credibility that such actions undermine.

Once upon a time, FEMA actually did things right. When it was an independent agency rather than part of Das Heimatschutzministerium, FEMA delivered the goods. Now sadly, it can’t even deliver a press conference. There’s a winning plank for a presidential candidate’s platform – a promise to make FEMA effective again. Or at very least, to have actual members of the press in the room during press conferences.

© Copyright 2007 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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