Project Katrina

Because of the Katrina debacle (FEMA’s response, not the actual hurricane itself), FEMA has been under close scrutiny this week as the agency scrambles to respond to numerous wildfires torching Southern California. One way to show you’re doing something, other then actually doing something, is to launch a PR campaign. And of course that is exactly what the White House and FEMA is doing,

But FEMA can’t even seem to get their PR campaign right. According to the Washington Post:

Johnson stood behind a lectern and began with an overview before saying he would take a few questions. The first questions were about the "commodities" being shipped to Southern California and how officials are dealing with people who refuse to evacuate. He responded eloquently.

He was apparently quite familiar with the reporters—in one case, he appears to say "Mike" and points to a reporter—and was asked an oddly in-house question about "what it means to have an emergency declaration as opposed to a major disaster declaration" signed by the president. He once again explained smoothly.

There were no tough questions, no skepticism, no follow-ups, and nothing that seemed to strayed from FEMA’s carefully constructed talking points. Just softball after softball. Have the reporters from our major media outlets lost the backbone to even question FEMA? 

Well not this time cause the people in the audience asking questions weren’t reporters. They were FEMA staffers pretending to be reporters. According to the Post FEMA only gave reporters 15 minutes notice, so FEMA employees stood in. I wonder if anybody in FEMA has heard of the concept of full-disclosure. Some of those that asked questions were Cindy Taylor, FEMA’s deputy director of external affairs, "Mike" Widomski, the deputy director of public affairs, and John "Pat" Philbin,  Director of External Affairs. Nothing like having the people that prepped you on the press conference ask the questions.

Update: FEMA just issued statement saying it is "reviewing" its "press procedures" to make sure that future communications are "straightforward and transparent." They go on to stress, "The real story—how well the response and recovery elements are working in this disaster—should not be lost because of how we tried to meet the needs of the media in distributing facts. We can and must do better, and apologize for this error in judgment."

Note to FEMA. That is all fine and dandy, but how can we be expected to believe "the real story" when you can’t met the most basic journalist standards.