[Infowarrior] - FEMA Meets the Press, Which Happens to Be . . . FEMA

[Richard Forno]

FEMA Meets the Press, Which Happens to Be . . . FEMA

By Al Kamen
Friday, October 26, 2007; A19

http://tinyurl.com/2up6wa

FEMA has truly learned the lessons of Katrina. Even its handling of the
media has improved dramatically. For example, as the California wildfires
raged Tuesday, Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson, the deputy administrator, had a
1 p.m. news briefing.

Reporters were given only 15 minutes' notice of the briefing, making it
unlikely many could show up at FEMA's Southwest D.C. offices.

They were given an 800 number to call in, though it was a "listen only"
line, the notice said -- no questions. Parts of the briefing were carried
live on Fox News (see the Fox News video of the news conference carried on
the Think Progress Web site), MSNBC and other outlets.

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.

FEMA press secretary Aaron Walker interrupted at one point to caution he'd
allow just "two more questions." Later, he called for a "last question."

"Are you happy with FEMA's response so far?" a reporter asked. Another asked
about "lessons learned from Katrina."

"I'm very happy with FEMA's response so far," Johnson said, hailing "a very
smoothly, very efficiently performing team."

"And so I think what you're really seeing here is the benefit of experience,
the benefit of good leadership and the benefit of good partnership," Johnson
said, "none of which were present in Katrina." (Wasn't Michael Chertoff DHS
chief then?) Very smooth, very professional. But something didn't seem
right. The reporters were lobbing too many softballs. No one asked about
trailers with formaldehyde for those made homeless by the fires. And the
media seemed to be giving Johnson all day to wax on and on about FEMA's
greatness.

Of course, that could be because the questions were asked by FEMA staffers
playing reporters. We're told the questions were asked by Cindy Taylor,
FEMA's deputy director of external affairs, and by "Mike" Widomski, the
deputy director of public affairs. Director of External Affairs John "Pat"
Philbin asked a question, and another came, we understand, from someone who
sounds like press aide Ali Kirin.

Asked about this, Widomski said: "We had been getting mobbed with phone
calls from reporters, and this was thrown together at the last minute."

But the staff did not make up the questions, he said, and Johnson did not
know what was going to be asked. "We pulled questions from those we had been
getting from reporters earlier in the day." Despite the very short notice,
"we were expecting the press to come," he said, but they didn't. So the
staff played reporters for what on TV looked just like the real thing.

"If the worst thing that happens to me in this disaster is that we had staff
in the chairs to ask questions that reporters had been asking all day,
Widomski said, "trust me, I'll be happy."

Heck of a job, Harvey