Syracuse.com - DEC gag order instituted by Gov. Cuomo hurts everyone

[HuntingNY-News]

Lance Robson, president of the state’s Fish and Wildlife Management Board, noted Gov. Cuomo ran for office promising open and transparent state government. The gag order takes things the opposite way, he said.

A lot of press and media coverage has been given lately to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s proposed state budget and the state’s new gun control laws.

Little has been given to another pressing matter — one that drastically affects journalists and outdoor sportsmen and women alike.

I’m talking about Gov. Cuomo’s gag order on the state Department of Environmental Conservation. It bans DEC staffers from talking directly to members of the media, unless they’ve been given prior approval by the department’s public relations officials, whose actions are being monitored closely by the governor’s staff.

The system now in place requires journalists to submit most questions of DEC staff members in writing to public relations staff, which then contact “the appropriate” DEC staff member(s). A written response is then prepared, and then scrubbed up by the DEC public relations staff for release. Any follow-up questions require the same process.

As for drafting a story, I’ve been told in many cases to quote the public relations person, rather than the DEC expert he or she interviewed.

Sometimes the answers are given to me within a day. Often it takes several days — and occasionally not at all. I don’t fault the DEC’s public relations staff. They appear to be working hard and try to be responsive. In at least 12 occasions since this past October, though, the answers have come back after my deadline or not at all.

The policy of prior approval also applies to any videotaping involving DEC staff or programs.

Why should the average sportsman/taxpayer be concerned?

As a board member of the New York State Outdoors Writers Association, I know this issue has put a damper on full and honest coverage of the DEC by other outdoors writers across the state.

Lance Robson, president of the state’s Fish and Wildlife Management Board, an advisory panel to the DEC on fish and wildlife matters, noted the governor’s gag order ranks among the top issues facing the state’s outdoors sportsmen.

“Historically, the DEC is one of the few state agencies in which staff have been able to talk openly and freely about fish and wildlife rules and matters,” the Sennett resident said. “The fact is, sportsmen (through their licensing fees) are paying the majority of the department’s costs for its field staff, and they deserve to have all their questions answered. That’s not happening.”

Robson noted Cuomo ran for office promising open and transparent state government. The gag order takes things the opposite way, he said.

Charlie Pace, of Cazenovia, sits on the state’s Conservation Fund Advisory Board, which also advises the DEC and helps oversee the department’s handling of the multi-million state conservation fund, which gets its money from hunting, fishing and trapping fees paid by sportsmen.

Pace noted the DEC gets blamed for a lot of stuff, and emphasized, like Robson, that this press policy is not their doing. Pace praised the level of competency and years of experience of the Region 7 staff in Cortland, ranking them as among the best, if not the best in the state. Both he and Robson noted that the fact that DEC experts can’t be trusted to talk to the media after years of doing so “is crushing their morale.” The same goes for other DEC staff across the state, Pace and Robson said.

More importantly, Pace said, the ultimate message coming out is not meeting the needs of sportsmen and taxpayers. The message, more often than not, he said, must withstand the litmus test of “What would the governor want to read?”

Jason Kemper, chairman of the board Pace sits on, earlier this month sent a letter of protest to DEC Commissioner Joe Martens, noting that the DEC is considering a modification of hunting, fishing and trapping licenses and their fee structure — and that the board has been unable to get any information from DEC staffers on this. Clearly, journalists aren’t the only ones being left out in the cold by this governor.

I can understand a hesitance about allowing all DEC staffers to talk freely about fracking, or about sensitive personnel, legal and land purchase issues.

I’m talking about reporting on fish and wildlife issues that often can be handled by a brief call to the DEC’s local fish and wildlife biologists. They’re the experts, the ones who know the answers or who can steer me in the right direction if I’m off course, saving everybody tons of time.

Recent stories that required the submittal of written questions include the Salmon River hatchery’s annual fall egg collection, the proposed Otisco Lake boat launch, the low-water level of tributaries on Cayuga Lake and its impact on fishing, cougars in the Adirondacks — or whether a deer is actually dead when it’s eyes are closed. In the case of the dead deer item, I ended up calling a retired DEC wildlife biologist now living in Florida to make the deadline for my column.

Recently, a reader wanted to know if a carcass he found near his Oneida Lake home was a badger, which are not native to this area. He emailed me four pictures, including one with a paw sticking out of the ice. Prior to the Cuomo gag order, I could get an answer from a DEC wildlife biologist within minutes.

I filed a written request and forwarded the photos to a local DEC public relations staffer. I got an answer 24 hours later.

“It’s a raccoon,” she emailed me back.

View the full article on The Syracuse Outdoors Blog