Jackson Free Press

Back when Tony Yarber was a city councilman, he was a remarkably transparent public servant. He never gave the Jackson Free Press the impression that he wasn't completely forthright, had anything to hide or didn't believe that the public had the right to know. He was one of our go-to sources on the council.

That transparency, which he pledged to us when he was running for mayor, has now apparently disappeared. It's gotten so bad that his communications director, Shelia Byrd, has told JFP reporters that city officials will only answer questions provided to her by email. When reached by phone today by the editor-in-chief, Byrd (a former AP reporter) would not confirm if the JFP can actually interview a City Hall official without submitting questions for prior review (so far, she hasn't let us) or if she will allow officials to talk to us if we do.

Byrd's response: "If you send us your email questions, I can provide you with the information you need." When pressed to clarify if that meant no interviews without submitting questions for review, she simply refused to answer. She said "all other media" around here allow "email interviews" and hung up on us when pressed to answer whether that meant no live interviews with city officials.

This cuts to the heart of government transparency. It makes no sense to have either elected or appointed public officials who cannot sit down with a reporter or pick up a phone and answer real questions and explain their actions and ideas. The role of a PR person, such as Byrd, is to schedule those real, live interviews, not block them altogether.

Sending questions in email is not an interview. What would happen is that the questions get passed around, and PR folks write watered-down responses. The public gets little or no real information out of such an exchange. And they're usually boring answers that no one wants to read anyway.

This is the lowest form of "journalism," and we do not practice it at the JFP. Our writers sign a code of ethics promising that they will not resort to such a lazy practice. It is also highly unusual for public officials to demand that questions be provided and answered in email; neither the editor-in-chief or news editor have ever run into that, including in cities from New York to Illinois.

It is not a practice that can work out well for the city. The irony is that we discovered this effort to sanitize city response when a JFP reporter tried to talk to someone there for a positive story that would make the city look good. When Byrd demanded email questions, our reporter passed, as she's trained to do. Byrd, thus, refused to grant interviews.

Bottom line: We will report the stories that the city would rather us not, regardless (ask the late Frank Melton, the master of trying to hide stuff). This policy will only keep city officials from having real voices in the press -- either responding to the public's questions or bragging about their efforts.

We urge the city, led by Mayor Yarber, to re-embrace the transparency he modeled on city council. Efforts to muzzle and hamstring the press never work out—at least with media outlets that maintain high standards, such as avoiding email "interviews" and taking time to factcheck stories, as we do.

Even if the "other media" don't bother.