07/21/2007

Media shackled at event

By Bill O'Brien
Business editor
bobrien@
record-eagle.com

There's a shadow over the National Governors Association's summer meeting in Traverse City, despite the brilliant blue skies that greeted the politicos.

Specifically, it's the growing shroud of secrecy and silence that envelopes and insulates too many public officials from the people they're supposed to be serving.

A conference originally sold to the public as a regional economic coup has evolved — under the questionable guise of security precautions — into a cloistered, controlled and contrived event wherein media members are herded like sheep and the general public's no more than an afterthought.

Remember when a troupe of state and local officials announced a couple of years ago they'd snared the 2007 governor's summer meeting? It was trumpeted as the greatest thing for the Grand Traverse region since sliced bread. But when it came time to explain and detail its local import, organizers' responses have been don't ask, don't tell, and it's none of your business.

Red flags started going up in the spring, when local tourism types became uncharacteristically antsy when asked seemingly innocuous questions about event preparations. NGA public relations types seemed aghast that the local newspaper asked even the most basic who, what, where and whens.

Since then, organizers cranked up their obfuscation, silence and utter lack of openness.

Which governors plan to attend?

Can't say.

How many?

Don't know.

What will they do when they're here?

No comment.

Some privately suggest the governors are sensitive to publicity over the meeting because they don't want their constituents back home to think they're just here for a weekend of fun. But that's no excuse. If the event is as important as they say, they should be able to justify their attendance to taxpayers. Or they should just stay home. They're still publicly paid officials who shouldn't be shielded from public scrutiny like pampered Hollywood celebrities being kept from paparazzi.

Here are some of the "state secrets” the newspaper wanted to "expose” about the NGA meeting:

The food menu. Grand Traverse Resort spokesman J. Michael DeAgostino rebuffed a reporter's question about the food preparation plans and said the NGA had "access” to those details.

"We know what we are preparing, but I am not able to divulge that,” he said.

Huh?

Someone else asked about gift boxes of locally made items being given to attending governors. Sorry, said Brad VanDommelen of the Traverse City Convention and Visitors Bureau. The NGA wouldn't let him talk about that so as not to ruin the governors' "surprise.”

What?

Even VanDommelen acknowledged already having his "wrist slapped” for talking to the media about the event. This from a guy who's worked on planning events like a Super Bowl and a Major League Baseball All-Star game, and seemed a little perplexed by all the secrecy.

"Some of this stuff is a little over the top,” he said.

He can say that again. Reporters who covered President George W. Bush's campaign stop in Traverse City three years ago didn't have to jump through nearly as many hoops or over as many barriers as those erected by the NGA.

And it's not just the local media irritated by all the cloak-and-daggery. At a recent conference on Mackinac Island, a staffer from the Detroit Free Press quipped that the NGA stood for the "Nothing Going-on Association,” due to its officials' reluctance to divulge event information.

But this absurdity goes beyond bothersome. It speaks to the self-importance of these governors and their staffs and their desire to manage messages. It also directly relates to how the "terror threat” stoked by the Bush administration over the past six years increasingly is used to insulate the elected and appointed public servants from the people they're paid to represent — and from the media whose job it is to report on their activities.

Maybe the NGA should change its name to "Not Going to be Accountable,” because that's clearly the face it's put on this event.

Bill O'Brien is the business editor for the Record-Eagle