45 admin threatens to ban outlet when reporter refuse to censor facts – and does it

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Kimi Wei <kimi () thewei com>
> Date: February 12, 2018 at 4:09:13 PM EST
> To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
> Subject: 45 admin threatens to ban outlet when reporter refuse to censor facts – and does it
>
> https://healthjournalism.org/blog/2018/02/cms-threatens-to-bar-modern-healthcare-from-press-calls-after-reporter-refuses-to-alter-story/
>
> CMS threatens to bar Modern Healthcare from press calls after reporter refuses to alter story
>
> BY FELICE J. FREYER | FEBRUARY 5, 2018
> Felice J. Freyer is AHCJ's vice president and chair of the organization's Right to Know Committee. She is a health 
> care reporter for The Boston Globe.
>
> The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services threatened to ban a reporter from participating in the federal agency’s 
> telephone news conferences after he refused to delete three sentences from a published story that apparently had 
> rankled CMS Administrator Seema Verma.
>
> The reporter — Virgil Dickson, Washington bureau chief for Modern Healthcare — believed the agency was making good on 
> its threat on Thursday when, he said, his phone went mute during a CMS press call and a woman’s voice told him he was 
> not allowed to participate. An editor later confirmed with CMS officials that he had been banned from press calls, 
> Dickson said.
>
> But after the Association of Health Care Journalists sent CMS several questions about the incident, an agency 
> spokesman on Saturday evening emailed a one-sentence reply: “No reporters have been banned by CMS.” He did not 
> explain why Dickson was ejected from Thursday’s call.
>
> Dickson said he has received no communication from CMS assuring him of future access. Even if he is allowed to 
> participate in future CMS press calls — already typically restricted to a handful of reporters — the attempt to alter 
> a story by threatening to cut off access raises deep concerns among journalists.
>
> “Administrator Verma seems to think she can bury inconvenient facts by threatening reporters with blacklisting,” said 
> Ivan Oransky, M.D., president of the Association of Health Care Journalists, the world’s largest organization of 
> reporters, editors, and producers covering health care.
>
> “That tactic won’t work – truth will out,” Oransky said. “But the very act of trying to stifle a press report is a 
> frightening assault on the First Amendment. AHCJ intends to vigorously protest this bullying.”
>
> Reporting on a resignation
>
> Seema Verma , administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, spoke at a briefing on public health 
> emergencies at the CDC on Dec. 4.
>
> At issue was Dickson’s Jan. 23 storyabout the abrupt resignation of Brian Neale, an official who oversaw Medicaid and 
> helped move it in more conservative direction.
>
> After providing statements from Verma and Neale, Dickson quoted “industry insiders” who said the departure was 
> prompted by “some sort of disagreement between Verma and Neale that erupted in the past few days.” He also mentioned 
> that one source said Neale had been concerned about the workload. This information appeared more than halfway through 
> the story.
>
> After the article appeared, Dickson received an email from Brett O’Donnell, a communications contractor working for 
> CMS. O’Donnell called reports of a disagreement or workload problems “false speculation” and said it was 
> “irresponsible” to mention them without more details.
>
> Dickson stood his ground, noting that the information came from multiple, reliable sources. But he agreed to speak 
> with Neale for clarification, and subsequently added Neale’s denial of a disagreement.
>
> The next day, O’Donnell wrote to Dickson’s editor, Matthew Weinstock, asserting that the article was inaccurate and 
> demanding that the references to workload and the disagreement be excised. O’Donnell’s email also stated: “Short of 
> fully correcting the piece we will not be able to include your outlet in further press calls with CMS.”
>
> Weinstock replied that a correction was not necessary, because the information came from credible sources and was 
> balanced with Neale’s denial and other officials’ comments.
>
> Just over a week later, on Feb. 1, Dickson was removed from the CMS press call.
>
> Dickson, who has been covering health care in D.C. for eight years, four and a half of them for Modern Healthcare, 
> said he’d never before been shut out of press calls.
>
> Aurora Aguilar, editor-in-chief of Modern Healthcare, told AHCJ that the incident is unlike anything she has seen in 
> more than 20 years in journalism.
>
> “I don’t think I’ve ever come across a situation where I was asked to remove something from a story in a way that 
> felt like censorship,” she said.
>
> Aguilar said Dickson is known as a thorough and fair reporter. Modern Healthcare, whose subscribers are chiefly 
> executives from health care systems and insurance companies, publishes articles about CMS once or twice a day. “We 
> need to continue to be informing our audience about what’s going on,” she said.
>
> Dickson and his editors reached out to Verma but received no response. Aguilar said that on Friday she placed five 
> phone calls and sent an email to Charmaine Yoest, who heads media affairs at the Department of Health and Human 
> Services, and also received no response. Update: Aguilar said that Yoest got back to her on Sunday, promising to have 
> a response by the end of the day Monday.
>
> Role of a consultant 
>
> O’Donnell, the consultant who threatened to blackball Modern Healthcare, is not a member of the media affairs offices 
> for CMS or for HHS.
>
> He is a Republican strategist who has helped GOP candidates in their political campaigns. In 2015, O’Donnell pleaded 
> guilty to lying to U.S. House ethics investigators about how much campaign work he did with money that came from 
> office accounts rather campaign accounts.
>
> O’Donnell, reached by email, declined to answer questions from AHCJ.
>
> Kimberly Leonard, co-chair of AHCJ’s D.C. chapter, said the incident involving Dickson comes amid a wider pattern of 
> barriers to access at CMS, an agency that oversees the health care of more than 130 million Americans.
>
> In contrast to previous administrations, CMS officials do not hold in-person press conferences. They have also taken 
> to inviting select reporters to telephone briefings, and excluding others without explanation.
>
> Leonard also questioned how barring a Modern Healthcare reporter from press calls benefits the agency. “Modern 
> Healthcare’s readers include some of the most influential leaders in the health care industry,” she said in an email. 
> “Putting aside the grave ethical transgressions here, members of the administration need to realize that they are 
> also hurting themselves through these actions. These calls are an important avenue for them to present their reasons 
> for implementing particular policies.”
>
> Note: Dickson provided the emails from consultant O’Donnell to AHCJ. Some of O’Donnell’s messages stated that they 
> were “off the record.” However, according to both common journalistic practice and the written media policy of the 
> Department of Health and Human Services, information is “off the record” only when both parties agree.
>
> The HHS media policy guidelines state that communications are on the record unless restrictions are “mutually agreed 
> upon in advance.”
>
> Dickson said he made no such agreement with O’Donnell.
>
> Update: CMS makes amends with Modern Healthcare but questions remain 
> <https://healthjournalism.org/blog/2018/02/cms-makes-amends-with-modern-healthcare-but-questions-remain/>
>
> Kimi Wei
> kimi () thewei com  @kimiwei
> facebook.com/thekimiwei
> 862-203-8814



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