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A crusty, old state worker once told me that “the story of government is not what is said is not so, it is what is so is not said.”
Wise words that seem to get wiser by the year.
That’s because the opportunity to actually interview an elected officer or state agency director, face to face, with no questions off the table, are getting as rare as a snowstorm in June.
Most often – almost always – a request to talk to a governor, director or congressional representative goes unanswered and goes to voicemail. You get an emailed response that says “send some questions and we’ll get back to you.”
What you get back is typically half answers and political speak like “I remained committed to blah, blah ….”
The press/media is partially to blame. We could have refused, long ago, to accept “email interviews” but we haven’t.
(I recall when an appointed state senator, facing their first election, asked me to “email some questions” rather than submit to a real interview. I told my editor “screw that,” but she said send the questions, because that was the only way we’d get a response. Ugh.)
(A year ago, I wrote about U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts’ purchase of a 3,500-acre ranch in Nebraska’s scenic Pine Ridge. I requested a comment, and a PR guy said he’d get back to me.
I figured that I’d get a response like “I love Nebraska and wanted my own piece of it.” But no. No response.
There are exceptions. When a senator or governor has a personal initiative, they might prattle on for an eternity about what a great idea it is.
We also have state “sunshine” laws that allow reporters, and the general public, to make formal “public records requests” for specific information.
Back in the day, such a serious request (one that cites state statutes and refers to a company lawyer) used to elicit a serious response. But not so much now.
Instead, you typically get some delaying tactic like “can you clarify your request?” or “we’re so busy, this would take us months to get you a response.” And then there’s the “this will cost us thousands to fulfill, can you send a check?”
I wrote a little story a couple of months ago citing a report, required of the Nebraska Health and Human Services Department, on the number of kids getting necessary vaccinations.
The report included a graph that clearly showed the number of vaccinations decreasing.
What the graphic didn’t include were the actual numbers used to compose the graphic, which, to me, seemed quite important for a story.
So I called the DHHS, which, instead of giving me the numbers, told me to submit a formal records request. That, I said, seemed unnecessary since the numbers used to create the graph must be easily accessible. How else could you compose such a graphic?
But nooooooo. I had to fill out a formal public records request that elicited this response: due to the high volume of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, my simple query would not be answered for three months. That’s ridiculous, I thought. That agency created a graphic that required numbers of vaccinations done. But somehow, now, they couldn’t put their hands on those figures for several weeks.
As a measles outbreak was capturing headlines across the nation, I quit waiting, and wrote my story about falling vaccination rates – without specific numbers – because it was very newsworthy. I never received the promised response to my FOIA.
And don’t get me started about the now-standard practice of elected officials rejecting live debates with campaign opponents. Such debates ought to be required in a democracy, so we can actually hear what a candidate says – unrehearsed, and unfiltered by some campaign consultant.
OK, you say. Aren’t politicians busy? Aren’t state agencies understaffed and overworked? Do voters even watch debates?
Possibly, but I doubt it. Don’t we, via news reports and public debates, deserve straight answers to straight questions?
I think so. We ought to know that “what is said is so.”
Paul Hammel has covered the Nebraska state government and the state for decades. He is a retired senior reporter for the Nebraska Examiner and the former Capitol Bureau Chief for the Omaha World-Herald. A native of Ralston, Nebraska, he loves traveling and writing about the state. See See
