Faking It At FEMA

by hilzoy

A couple of weeks ago, in one of the many stories I didn't blog about at the time, FEMA held a fake press conference in which all the questions were asked not by actual reporters, but by FEMA staff pretending to be reporters. In the aftermath, FEMA"s director for external affairs resigned, and said that it was all a mistake:

"John "Pat" Philbin, the now former director of external affairs for FEMA, told CBS News that he should have stopped the press conference that the agency held last week without any media present.

“I should have cancelled it quickly. I did not have good situational awareness of what was happening,” he told CBS News in a telephone interview.

Philbin himself was heard off-camera asking Vice Admiral Harvey Johnson, his boss, a question. He now says he feels terrible about what happened adding that the FEMA press office was under considerable pressure to get information on the California fires out to the press and was working on little sleep.

“I can definitively tell you that there were no discussions or conversations about setting up a fake news conference.”

Philbin said that Adm. Johnson, the second-in-command at the agency, did not realize it was FEMA staffers and not reporters who were asking questions, despite the fact that Johnson called on members of the FEMA staff by name during the press conference.

“I am not aware that he knew what was happening and all of sudden staff were asking questions,” Philbin said. “When the staff began asking questions I should have intervened and I didn’t.”"

This sounded a bit dodgy to me at the time -- for instance, it's a bit odd for Philbin to say "When the staff began asking questions I should have intervened and I didn’t" about an occasion when he himself was one of the staff asking questions, unless he normally has to "intervene" to keep himself from doing things, the way Dr. Strangelove has to intervene to keep his own arm from strangling him. It turns out that it was. CBS got a photo of the event, and identified the people in it. Here's the photo:

And here's CBS' description of who's in it:

"At the podium on the left is Vice Admiral Harvey Johnson, the second in command at FEMA. (...)

Identified in the photo are staff members that Johnson works closely with on a daily basis.

From left to right: Nathaniel Fogg, Counselor to the Director and Deputy Director; John "Pat" Philbin, former Director of External Affairs; Michael Widomski, Public Affairs Specialist; Eric Heighberger, Special Assistant, Office of the Administrator; Cindy Taylor (in tan suit), Communications Deputy Director; Dan Shulman (red tie), Director of Legislative Affairs; Debbie Wing (curly blond hair), Media Response Liaison; Aaron Walker (back to camera), National Spokesman."

Unless Vice Admiral Johnson has some sort of serious cognitive defect that prevents him from knowing who he works with on a daily basis, the idea that he just didn't know what was going on doesn't hold water. Moreover, it's not as though the room was full of reporters on the one hand, and staffers on the other, and suddenly -- who knew? -- the staffers started asking questions. Of the people present, only two -- the small heads above the blonde curly hair of Debbie Wing -- are not identified by CBS as FEMA staffers. I suppose they might be reporters, but since FEMA only gave reporters 15 minutes' notice that there was going to be a press conference at all, even that number of reporters seems unlikely. They might also be FEMA staffers whom CBS either could not identify, or who did not work with Vice Adm. Johnson "on a daily basis." [UPDATE: No reporters were present. H/t Gary.]

So unless we are to believe that all these FEMA staffers found themselves in a room full of FEMA staffers they knew and worked with, and at most two journalists, sat down in the chairs where journalists normally sit, and asked the questions that journalists normally ask, all without noticing a thing, I don't see how we can conclude that this is anything other than a deliberately staged fake press conference about which FEMA staffers subsequently lied.

Not that that's anything new; it's just that every so often I think it's important to keep track even of the smaller examples of this administration's mendacity. Because in an administration that had genuinely introduced a new moral tone" into Washington, as Bush promised to do, people would know that to pull a stunt like this would cost them their jobs whether or not anyone found out about it.

Comments

[Ugh]

I can only imagine the questions:

Q: Vice Admiral Johnson, are the fires under control?
VAJ: Of course they are, didn't you get the memo Nate?

Q: Vice Admiral Johnson, could you explain to me what President Bush did to help out?
VAJ: Certainly. Bushie personally piloted, for 25 of the last 24 hours, a C-130 that doused the flames. Naked.

Q: Vice Admiral Johnson, how did Vice President Cheney contribute?
VAJ: Mr. Cheney shot all the peppered all the suspected arsonists in the face. The survivors are on their way to, heh, well, just let me say "sunnier" climates.

Q: Vice Admiral Johnson, is it true that you have 26 inch pythons, much like Hulk Hogan?
VAJ: Well *shrugs*, I did back in my younger days, but now I have to admit their only 25 inches. Want to see them?

*attempts to tear shirt off but dislocates shoulder instead*

[Jeff]

people would know that to pull a stunt like this would cost them their jobs whether or not anyone found out about it.

I'm sure they'll "be taken care of".

[Gary Farber]

Spencer S. Hsu gave some more detail in today's story.

An internal investigation into a fake news conference staged by the Federal Emergency Management Agency during last month's California wildfires found that the agency's press secretary directed aides to pose as reporters, secretly coached them during the briefing and ended the event after a final, scripted question was asked, according to a senior FEMA official.

It confirmed that there were no reporters at all present, Hilzoy:

[...] Nor did the inquiry fully explain the event's rushed timing. FEMA announced the news conference at its Southwest Washington headquarters about 15 minutes before it was to begin at 1 p.m., making it unlikely that reporters could attend. None did, and real reporters listening on a telephone conference line were barred from asking questions.

The new acting director of "external affairs" (which seems to mean "the world outside FEMA," which I suspect may say something about the most common FEMA worldview) is holding the line, though:

[...] The review "found nothing that indicated malicious or preconceived intent to deceive the media or the public," said FEMA's acting director of external affairs, Russ Knocke, who conducted the inquiry.

The point I still think underemphasized is that the guy alleged to be most responsible -- and I don't know about that, but he was certainly fully culpable -- FEMA's director of external affairs at the time, John "Pat" Philbin, was already on his way to be director of public affairs for the the director of national intelligence (DNI). This should make everyone extra-specially comfortable with assurances from this administration about intelligence and surveillance issues, right?

Yes, for some of us, it's impossible to deal effectively with subtracting from zero, but, somehow, not everyone has reached that point with this administration. Yet.

[Steve]

What's amazing about this is the extent to which the White House has denounced the event and termed it reprehensible and unacceptable and so forth, when it's not any different from the Bush press strategy for the last 7 years.

Remember when they brought in firefighters from around the country to help with Katrina, and the very first group got assigned to go walk around with the President and do photo ops? It takes a lot of chutzpah for them to call FEMA out on this.

[hilzoy]

Thanks, Gary. Updated.

[Bernard Yomtov]

Don't reporters usually carry steno pads and pens, or is that just in the movies?

AFAICT, nobody in the picture except maybe the guy in the back has any way of actually writing down what the speaker says. That's a pretty broad clue, I would think, if any more were needed.

[Gary Farber]

"AFAICT, nobody in the picture except maybe the guy in the back has any way of actually writing down what the speaker says."

I see five people possibly or definitely holding handheld devices when I blow up the picture somewhat.

The guy on the far left is the most doubtful, as whatever it is is edge-on, or not clearly distinguishable by me, and so might not be relevant. But he's also just as likely a possibility, although to be sure, he's not making notes at that moment.

But the guy at the other end of his row, three down, also looks to me like he probably has a handheld.

Then, on the far-right front, the guy with his back to us clearly has a device lying on the podium in front him, and the woman sitting in front him is clearly making notes on a hand-held device. The guy in the back with the bald spot may also be making notes. Or maybe he's just fascinated by his knee; hard to tell.

The other two in back have their bodies almost entirely concealed, so we can't tell.

But only two people, the two guys in the middle of the front row, clearly don't have note-taking capability, as it looks to me, at least.

Not that it changes the facts, of course.

[Gary Farber]

"...the woman sitting in front him is clearly making notes on a hand-held device."

Or is playing a game, or reading notes or messages. Sorry, I shouldn't have implied that we knew what she was doing with her device (phone?).

[Bruce Baugh]

From time to time I'm fascinated in a worried way by people who lie by habit and choice. Imagine if FEMA people had just said, "Here's a briefing on the situation as we understand it and our plans for going forward from here. There will be a conference with opportunities for the press to ask questions later; for right now we're just going to cover the information we have and then get back to work." Would anyone have thought this odd or dangerous in some way that would justify a cover-up? I can't see it. There was no reason at all to mount a deception except that they felt like it.

[Bill]

times 23.10.07 reporting bb pressconference doubleplusungood refs unpersons rewrite fullwise upsub antefiling.

[Bruce Baugh]

Okay, Bill, I was in the process of scooping up some chili when I read that comment and ended up slopping it all over the end table. Good work. :)

[Bernard Yomtov]

But only two people, the two guys in the middle of the front row, clearly don't have note-taking capability, as it looks to me, at least.

Maybe, Gary, but they sure don't look like they're about to run to the phones, call the editor, and yell, "Stop the presses," either.

[Hartmut]

Of course good reporters don't need notepads but can memorize hourlong conversations, especially if they have not actually taken place. Also today taking of notes is unnecessary because they will receive the script and talking points off camera*. And be honest, there won't be any "news" in the press conference anyway, so the piece in the papers could be written without extra input apart from some names. I'd bet that most people here could have written a believable piece without attending.
[/mild snark]

*soldiers need rehearsals for things like that**, reporters don't
**cf. the "life chat" of Bush with selected soldiers in Iraq

[russell]

What a bunch of dopes.

I'm trying to think of something more insightful to say about it, but I keep coming back to the above.

Thanks -