Daily Freeman uses passive aggressive tactics

In case you missed the Editorial in the Saturday Freeman (which you probably did) here's another look.

It seems to be a passive aggressive swipe at Hein.

While the words in the editorial have teeth... using sarcasm...... quoting Mike Hein's "assistant" and then saying.... Right - as if to say that they don't believe her.

Then, they are even so blatant as to say as it regards Hein's new policy "And, yes, in your everyday life you would call that “a lie.”" Wow - did they really just say that?

Pretty aggressive.

So then why, Daily Freeman, put it in the Saturday paper?

You wanted as many people to read it as possible..... Right

Why not put it out when readers are most likely to read it?

Mojo says you have balls.... We're not so sure.

and BTW, everyone still wants to know why you are giving Hein and Gallagher a free pass.



Saturday, January 24, 2009 3:07 AM EST

Neither department heads nor rank-and-file employees of Ulster County government will be allowed to talk to the media without permission from the top under the new regime, according to a directive from the county’s spanking new executive government.

There are departments in Ulster County government that even are requiring employees to sign what is, in effect, a gag order to obtain compliance.

So it is that one of the first acts of Ulster’s first county executive, Michael Hein, is to throttle public employees who are paid with public tax money to handle the public’s business.

It is not an auspicious start.

An assistant to Hein says the executive branch was faced with what to do about a policy that had existed since 1985, but not necessarily been enforced. The goal, she says, is not to deny information, but “to make sure that when we talk to the press, we can give you the most complete and hopefully accurate information available."

Right.

Would everyone who believes stopping employees and department heads from directly answering questions about the public’s business will result in a more complete and candid understanding of that business, please step forward?

It just doesn’t work that way. The experience of news organizations is exactly the opposite. Where government employees and officers are throttled, information about the operation of public business can become both harder to get and less trustworthy.

What you too often get is information that either a) is too distant from the source to be authoritative, comprehensive or nuanced, or b) you get a willful spin designed to put the best possible face on an unpleasant situation. And, yes, in your everyday life you would call that “a lie.”

Government is not private enterprise and Hein shouldn’t be trying to run it like a private enterprise when it comes to information about public business. It is supposed to be the public’s business and the freest possible flow of information furthers that business, even when it makes things uncomfortable, as it sometimes will, for elected officials.