Syracuse.com - DEC commish concedes agency's press policy is too restrictive, needs work

[HuntingNY-News]

Joe Martens, commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Conservation, conceded Sunday that his agency's press policy has problems and that he's trying to fix things. Martens, told the Adirondack Press Enterprise that he's trying to change the department's media policy so that reporters can talk to DEC employees, "especially when they're just asking for description from the field rather...

Joe Martens, commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Conservation, conceded Sunday that his agency's press policy has problems and that he's trying to fix things.

Martens, told the Adirondack Press Enterprise that he's trying to change the department's media policy so that reporters can talk to DEC employees, "especially when they're just asking for description from the field rather than department policy."

"We've heard the complaints - from lots of outdoor writers in particular - and I'm going to do my best to improve that situation," Martens told the Adirondack Press Enterprise at Camp Santanoni in Newcomb, where for the second year in a row he participated in a ski-in open house at the restored Adirondack great camp.

I've written about this problem, referring to it as the "governor's gag order" on the DEC. The policy kicked into gear big-time last fall, when DEC officials announced that members of the media could not talk directly to DEC staffers and that all contact had to be cleared in advance with the DEC's press office, no matter how trivial or mundane. More often than not, questions had to be submitted in writing to the press office.

Martens told me in a recent story that the press policy is his, but other writers across the state have noted it originated with the governor's office and that it is in place in other state departments and agencies as well. Recently, a state Department of Transportation employee was forced to resign after he talked to a newspaper without getting prior approval.

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