In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

81 The relationship between government agencies and the media is often difficult. One of Chandler’s proposals is to better equip public officials for their encounters with the media by giving them training.The case of the Hawai‘i van-cam fiasco, which she mentions, is a good example of when such training may have been beneficial to the public.Although it is true that part of the problem was the media’s need to sensationalize the issue, a contributing factor was the inability of the public agency spokesperson to deal effectively with the questions that were coming from citizens and, soon thereafter, legislators. Training may be helpful, but Chandler’s concerns raise larger issues. The media’s business-driven need to reduce issues to their simplest and most dramatic elements is a threat to the need of citizens for realistic understanding of issues that are complex. It is also a threat to the healthy dialogue that needs to go on between citizens and the public agencies that attempt to work on their behalf. The media play a crucial role in public policy formation.Their understanding often shapes the public’s support or opposition. If a newspaper, radio, or television station gets interested in an issue, it can make or break the matter .The media often can keep an issue alive or deep-six it. Emotionally charged issues like putting cameras in mobile vans for nabbing speeders (akaVan-Cam), or a vicious child abuse case, may stay in the headlines for months before they run their course. The governor, legislators, and affected state agencies are required to repeat their positions over and over again for the various media outlets.The media frequently force public officials to keep responding, keep explaining, and keep describing a policy to the point that they get a bit testy and seem defensive.This of course is the sound bite the press loves best. Conflict sells papers and leads the television news cycles. The newspapers and television do an excellent job of putting a face to a tragedy.For example,they can humanize a problem like crystal methamphetamine abuse by talking to families and individuals who know firsthand what the drug can do.The media often can set up a story for the community to 15 The Press; or, the Unkindest Cut of All… think about so that when the legislators get interested there has been some background work already done.This is positive and important in a democracy. However, the media also can get their teeth into a story that is very emotional but not very significant in terms of public effect. In retrospect, many in the governor’s cabinet felt that the Department ofTransportation (DOT) was getting a bum rap, mostly because it was not able to get its case about the van-cam program out clearly to the community . Most of the departments in the Cayetano administration had no press or information officer.This was probably a mistake. When the media call an agency, they want to talk to the department director.The governor wanted each director to respond to any and all press requests within twenty-four hours. If a particular director was uncomfortable with the press, or not very good at answering questions in digestible chunks, that lack of media savvy became a big problem for the department and the governor.With a large and complex bureaucracy like DHS, a question such as “Why did this agency move this child from a foster home?” may take the director twenty-four hours just to identify the case. Nonetheless, the directors were told by the governor never to say,“No The van-cam experiment case is an interesting example. A bill was passed by the legislature that empowered DOT to contract for ninety days with a private firm to take a radar-activated picture from a van parked on the side of the roadway of a vehicle that was allegedly speeding. The speeder would eventually receive a ticket in the mail along with visual evidence of the violation. Programs in several states had been implemented successfully, but in Hawai‘i, a few legislators, the talk-radio network, television stations, and newspapers began ranting about the proposed permanent bill. Radio and television stations day after day had callers alarmed that “Big Brother” would be looking into their cars. Many public commentators did not accurately describe how the statute was written or would be implemented . However, the public began raising concerns that an unsuspecting car...

Share