By Associated Press | October 27, 2007WASHINGTON - The White House scolded the Federal Emergency Management Agency yesterday for staging a phony news conference about assistance to victims of wildfires in Southern California. The agency, much criticized for its response after Hurricane Katrina more than two years ago, arranged to have FEMA employees play the part of independent reporters Tuesday and ask questions of Vice Admiral Harvey E. Johnson, the agency's deputy director.The questions were predictably soft and gratuitous.... She said the agency was just trying to provide information to the public, through the news media, because there were so many questions....FEMA gave reporters only 15 minutes' notice about Tuesday's news conference. No reporter attended the news conference in person, agency spokesman Aaron Walker said. The agency made available an 800 number so reporters could call in and listen to the news conference, but not ask questions.
Talk about the 'pseudo-event' -- which scholars call news that is manufactured by the powers that be. I find it fascinating that FEMA bothered at all. I think that point goes to the whole idea of institutional authority combined with the pursuit of an authentic illusion: By nudging out the reporters, FEMA officials can construct their own reality for constituents while making it seem as if there were a real news vetting process going on. The mistake, though, was assuming reporters would either not catch on, or not report the ruse. And that is the result of misjudging individual reporters, their complex relationships with sources, and their self-conception of their role (i.e. their sense of power and control over information to maintain their own authoritative stance). Anyone else care to weigh in?
5 comments:
FEMA could’ve easily just made a statement rather than fake this press conference, but it shows a fundamental lack of respect for journalists and the means in which they acquire their stories. I believe that this says more about the values of the administration and the standards they set than the individuals at FEMA. We all hope they’re doing their best to help the victims, the last thing they needed was this kind of black eye which could lead to a lasting suspicion of their efforts.
I’m very suspect of the White House’s denial of knowledge of this press conference, unless we‘re talking about the administration in a fragmented sense, where the people who were asked about it are different than anyone who would actually have knowledge of FEMA‘s procedures. The president and vice president have a track record of not making themselves available to the media. He doesn’t trust the media and is obviously trying to manufacture a heroic image out of a tragedy - afterall he has only gained public approval while posturing in the wake of a tragedy, and he’s desperately trying to repair damage to his image after Katrina. So now we’ve got him posing for photos with fire victims, giving them hugs by the remains of their homes. Nothing the administration has done in the past has given us reason to trust that they were not involved with FEMA’s decision here.
As for the denial by the White House, press secretary Dana Perino seems to be very composed in sticking to the correct script. This article about her from Time online depicts her in this way: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1673259,00.html
So now that the story is out, does the public care? Current mainstream journalism rarely goes beyond press conferences and manufactured news moments. If a public official in front of a podium holds their composure and properly represents their agenda during questioning, that’s the story most journalists will turn in without properly questioning it. The administration maintains the standard of holding press conferences in front of a pre-screened press corps who work for media outlets with big corporate interests. I think that from their perspective, they thought they could get away with planted fake journalists because they felt they could conduct a press conference that would be nearly identical to one where actual journalists were asking the questions.
I would like to connect this pseudo-event with our reading about news as myth in 561. In my opinion, what FEMA is trying to do here is re-cast the myth; in the news today they are constantly cast as the enemy, with the victims clearly defined, and in the case of Hurricane Katrina the heroes are not at all linked with FEMA. The organization is, the way I see it, clumsily attempting to control their own image through a poorly conceived PR event, and therein cast themselves as the hero. The victims were allowed to remain the same, and without real reporters there was no fear that the organization would be once again cast as the enemy or villain. To take this analogy even further, I could compare the fire to the "flood myth" mentioned in the reading, a disaster of catastrophic and mythological proportions.
Obviously FEMA went about this the wrong way, and I agree with Sue that the mistake is in assuming reporters would not "catch on" or "report the ruse." I do think, however, that it must have seemed to be a rather logical idea, and FEMA is not the first organization to attempt to recast its mythological role in the media. In fact, I think most PR is enacted to do just that: affect the mythological casting of its client in the minds of its potential clientele and the media.
-Kelsey W.
I think its pretty funny that FEMA thought this was a good idea. We're they just having some fun? Nothing like a little role playing to break up the monotony of...well, whatever FEMA does. Obviously there are better ways to "provide information to the public" than this ridiculous idea. As Steve said, I don't understand why they didn't just make a statement that answered some of the questions they were receiving. The whole thing reminds me of "The Society of the Spectacle."
Its a little scary to think about how much news is manufactured or constructed by the powers that be, including the U.S. government and all of its agencies. There is obviously a great deal of deceit and propaganda that the government disseminates to the public, much of which is so subtle it is hardly questioned but by a few people.
I do think that in the past events like this would be more likely to go unnoticed. Maybe I'm being naive here, but its my impression that the citizens of this country are slowly becoming a little more skeptical about what the government tells them. I may very well be wrong.
I think its really interesting to think about the reporters' "self-conception of their role' regarding this. I'm not sure if I really understand what that means, but...I do know that I am thankful we live in a country where journalists do have some role in the control over information. I couldn't imagine having to rely solely on the government as a "news source."
While FEMA's decision to hold a pseudo-event was probably not the brightest idea on its part, I'm hardly surprised the organization chose to do so. The government, I think, routinely underestimates the public and the media. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, FEMA continues to struggle to re-legitimize itself. And after criticism pointing to the differences between FEMA's response to the low-income minorities of New Orleans and its much faster response to the upper-class whites of Southern California, that struggle becomes all that much more difficult.
I would also agree with the previous poster, who says "the citizens of this country are slowly becoming a little more skeptical of what the government tells them." It seems the public's standards for government, as well as media, practices are ever-heightening in terms of these entities' roles in social life. Not all that long ago, we would have viewed a stunt like FEMA's as acceptable, if not expected. Today, as journalists and as citizens, we see it as dishonest and an insult to our intelligence. Likewise, the role of journalists has changed over the years. I've been reading a book by Schudson called Discovering the News, which talks about journalism's very commercial beginnings. In the institution's infancy, reporters brought news of trade and represented mostly mercantile interests. Today, we would find such reports to be shamefully elitist. In the case of FEMA, we have come to expect journalists to search for and uncover these sorts of government gaffes. So while FEMA's fake press conference doesn't baffle me, it does disappoint me. The organization should be more aware of journalists' social function today, as well as the public's own role in supporting that social function. The public is becoming more demanding, and rightly so. Mistakes like FEMA's only serve to heighten that demand.
I think FEMA's decision to hold this 'pseudo-event' demonstrates the growing confidence public relations practitioners have in their ability to "engineer consent" among society. As Dowie points out in his "Torches of Liberty" piece, "PR executives today are mediating public communications as never before." Had an average citizen been watching the press conference they likely would have had no way of knowing that all the "reporters" in attendance were in fact FEMA employees.
However, assuming that veteran reporters covering this beat would simply be oblivious to the ruse shows a complete overestimation of PR's powers of manipulation and a severe underestimation of the faculties and dedication of reporters. As Dowie points out, reporters are "trained and determined to be the objective "eyes and ears of the public" set out to research, investigate and report his or her findings as accurately as possible".
How those at FEMA would expect those reporters not in attendance to believe that a host of their colleagues had been able to make the press conference with only 15 minutes of notice is pretty comical. Also, that the "reporters" in attendance would ask such "predictably soft and gratuitous" when FEMA has been under such scrutiny since Hurricane Katrina also is a slap in the face of any self respecting reporter.
While it is concerning to see such supreme confidence by FEMA in the spinning and manipulative powers of public relations, it is heartening that journalists called them out on it rather than mindlessly using the quotes from the press conference to write their daily story required by whatever publication they work for.
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