This is a interesting article I found at http://www.newszap.com/display/inn_delmarva/news03.txt
Take notice on the difference in merit payed employees and non-merit.
Delaware spokespersons 'spinning' out of control?
January 26, 2002
By Tom Eldred, Senior writer
DOVER - What is the job of a "communications director" or "community-relations coordinator" or "chief of media relations" in Delaware government these days?
Does the growing proliferation of "spokespersons" help increase the flow of good, responsible, accurate information to the people?
Or does it alter information or hinder what the public needs to know to make their own intelligent deci-sions about public issues?
Healthy salaries
According to the state personnel office, there are at least 42 merit "spokesperson'' positions in Delaware government. Although harder to track down, a dozen or more exist on the non-merit side of the state em-ployment arena.
Job titles range from "public-information officer" to "community-relations officer" to "community-relations coordinator" to "editor/production coordinator" to "chief of media relations."
The responsibilities are similar - serving as public-relations gatekeepers for questions from the media and the public about state government.
Salaries are healthy. Merit public-relations jobs earn $31,427 to $57,985 a year. Non-merit positions usually pay more. At least three positions range from $56,100 to $81,600 annually.
The total cost, including the state's 17.81 percent benefit package, is at least $2.7 million a year, the per-sonnel office said.
State Personnel Director Lisa Blunt-Bradley said job titles often don't reflect the many different responsi-bilities employees may have.
"These positions do many things," she said. "For example, we have people answering e-mails from the public now. Many of these people are doing five different jobs at the same time."
Katherine Horvath, the personnel office's human-resources manager, also serves as spokeswoman for the department. She said she has other responsibilities, so it is hard to define how much time she devotes ex-clusively to the media.
Ms. Blunt-Bradley said the personnel office previously did not have an official spokesperson.
"I believed it was an important function for us to communicate information to the public as quickly and efficiently as possible," said Ms. Blunt-Bradley. "So, we restructured the human-relations position to also answer media calls.
"The way I operate is through participatory management," she said. "I want my spokesperson at the table when it's time to make policy decisions. Ultimately, I am responsible. I also want to be as accessible as possible."
Hard truth or 'spin'?
Professor Dennis D. Jackson is director of print journalism at the University of Delaware. He said the idea of having public-relations people speak out on government policy issues is troublesome.
"What we're seeing at the national level, especially since Sept. 11, is that virtually every time they trot out a public-relations person, that's what you get - public relations," he said.
"It's increasingly being used as a defense of national policy. As political issues are discussed, we're in-creasingly seeing a political angle being developed.
"When the governor's office and other state departments see how easy it is in Washington, they follow it. It's reprehensible. I think (spokespersons) often tend to start developing policy as they present it. That's dangerous.
"The more politicians become insulated from the press, the more they tend to believe their own press re-leases. Is the public being served? I don't think so."
Mr. Jackson stressed that national and local media need to continue to find ways to move past the pub-lic-relations barrier.
"That's what I tell my students," he said. "If they can't get information directly from the people that are accountable, the public will never get what it needs to know."
Filling a need
State Secretary of Education Valerie A. Woodruff says having a spokesman is essential for the large and diversified Department of Education she oversees.
"Sometimes, he can speak for policy and sometimes he comes to me," she said of Ron Gough, DOE's public-information officer.
"He's been here long enough to know what's in the forefront. Those are the times that he can clearly speak on an issue. There are other times when he needs to go to the expert or to me. That's our working relationship, and I think it's a good one."
Mr. Gough served 24 years in the Air Force before joining the Delaware Emergency Management Agency as a spokesman in 1994.
He went to the Division of Public Health in 1997 and moved over to DOE in 1999.
"My job is to get out the truth, nothing else," Mr. Gough said. "When there's good news, it goes out. When there's bad news, it goes out.
"I have a moral and ethical obligation to get the truth out, and I really pride myself on that, I really do.''
He said he also works continuously to develop good working relationships with the media.
"I don't 'deal' with the media," he said. "I work with the media. Having a point of contact, especially with the national media, is very important. They expect to get the information they need back by deadline, and I work to provide that."
Mrs. Woodruff said there's a fine line between information coming from a spokesperson and comments from the top officeholder.
"I believe I need to be accessible to the media," she said. "I speak for public education in Delaware so it is essential that I'm very clear on where we stand. Ron's job also involves helping to facilitate information from here to local school districts. He coordinates many other things for this office."
Secretary of Health and Social Services Vincent P. Meconi said it comes down to sheer numbers. He was secretary of administrative services for the Carper administration before moving to DHSS when Gov. Ruth Ann Minner took office.
"I was the press guy in my previous job,'' he said. "We had only 288 employees, and most of our work was for other state agencies. I would often take press inquiries myself.
"At DHSS, we have almost 5,000 employees. We touch one out of every four Delawareans. We receive con-stant media attention. If I did the job myself, I'd have time for nothing else even if I took only half the calls.''
He said the department's two press people are both former newspaper reporters who know what to ex-pect when the media calls.
"I rely on my people to determine who should speak on a particular issue," he said. "It's not unlike a cop directing traffic. It's finding the best person to talk about a particular subject.
"I've told them their job is to make the press happy, to meet the needs of the media. I've gotten a lot of praise and no complaints."
Allison Taylor Levine, communications director for DHSS, is one of the former newspaper reporters.
"People who have worked on the other side understand the urgency of meeting media deadlines," she said. "We can hopefully get the answers and also anticipate other related questions."
Ms. Levine said spokespeople oftentimes get specific answers to questions the top officeholder may not even know.
"Obviously, the secretary cannot know the fine details of everything that's going on," she said. "Secretary Meconi prefers to have one of his colleagues speak, because they're on the front line.
"If I think it's something that he would want to comment on, I go to him. Just as he has a lawyer for legal issues and people for constituent issues, he has me for media relations."
Ms. Levine said moving from a reporter's job to the "other side" was a challenge.
"There tends to be kind of a stigma on public-relations people," she said. "When I interviewed for the job, I told them I wanted to make information more accessible to the public."
Mr. Meconi defended a recent policy change that prohibits the state medical examiner's office, which is in DHSS, from talking directly with reporters. All calls are now referred to a DHSS spokesperson.
"We are one division and want to have one source for the media," he said. "It's a uniform policy through-out the department."
Changing times?
Ned Davis, a longtime lobbyist and government-watcher at Legislative Hall, was press secretary for Gov. Charles L. Terry Jr. in the late 1960s.
He said times have changed. He called the increasing number of spokespersons addressing policy issues a "proliferating disease" that is costing taxpayers more money all the time.
"When I was press secretary, the senior media people would no more put up with me getting in the way of their seeing the governor than the man in the moon," he said. "If they wanted the governor's comment, they'd go up and get him."
Mr. Davis said government spokespeople should learn to weed through less important queries while helping to facilitate direct communication with policymakers on important issues.
"The governor can't comment on everything," he said. "The press has to show some restraint, too. But I think it's ridiculous that the medical examiner can't talk to the press anymore."
Roger Martin, a retired history teacher and state senator, has authored several books on Delaware in-cluding an oral history of former Gov. Elbert N. Carvel.
"In the days of Gov. Carvel, he would come down the steps after the day's work to sit there to talk with anybody that wanted to," Mr. Martin said. "I think Gov. (Sherman W.) Tribbitt was about the last governor we had that accessibility with.
"I don't think the press should come to see the governor on everything, but on important matters the gov-ernor should always be available.
"Years ago, when I was a salesman, the trick was to get past the secretaries to the people who had the power. The trick is to find out what the real motive is, and that can be very difficult."
'Accurate information'
Lt. Timothy Winstead is chief public-information officer for the state police.
"Our primary role is a cooperative effort with the media," he said. "The goal is to facilitate timely and ac-curate information on matters that may be of public interest.
"We also have many individuals who are specialized in a particular area. We may serve as a resource to direct the media to the appropriate person to obtain specialized information, up to and including the su-perintendent."
Lt. Winstead said Delaware's three state police media contacts are veteran troopers with a combined 35 years of service. Civilians are not hired for the job.
"It's a system that has been in place for an extremely long time. We believe it works," he said.
Hot dogs won't do it
Mr. Jackson said the media needs to remain staunchly committed to its traditional adversarial role of digging out the news and reporting it accurately.
"This is an adversarial business," he said. "No amount of hot dogs or hors d'oeuvres and spin is going to take away that adversarial relationship.
"That's the reason they call us 'the press.' We press for the truth as a proxy for the average citizen. If we can't get this information, the public will never know what it needs to know.
"When I have a new class, I ask how many want to go into public relations. Usually, about 30 percent raise their hands. I tell them that the rest of us are going to consider them paid liars.
"These people are spin doctors, and that is exactly what they're trained to do. We need to get past these smoothies.
"What they're delivering is canned goods. We've got to open the can and ask is it prime quality or some-thing that's watered down? If the press doesn't look under the lid of that can, it will lead to mistakes and eventually lead to pain and suffering.''
Mr. Jackson said rigid control of the national press and the spin of misinformation reached a peak dur-ing the Persian Gulf War and has continued in one form or another since.
"It's a continuing trend," he said. "We're seeing the trickle-down effect here in Delaware. I think it's repre-hensible for an elected politician, who is paid by government monies, to trot out a public-relations person to talk about policy.
"I see a really major battle coming between the press and the government, on both national and state lev-els."
Tom Eldred can be reached at 741-8212 or teldred@newszap.com.
