Nein. ha ha ha Sieg HAHA!

Insert coin(s).

These guys (Otter & Co.) see something coming down the pike, and it ain't pretty. I hope Idaho Dems are at the top of their game, it might be very, very smart of Idahoans to have a "half-and-half" congressional delegation going into the next decade.

Warbis is a former newsman himself. As such, he should be totally ashamed to be involved in this.
Yeah, he's a flunky for the gov now, but still should have said something like, "Huh-uh, Butch; trying to interfere with news stuff gonna get you in a heap of trouble."
No harm in telling the agencies, When you send out a news release, include me in the list of addresses it goes to. That way, Butch would know about them immediately and not be taken by surprise when he sees something in the paper or gets a clipping of it. But insisting that he see it *before* it's sent out comes out sounding an awful lot like prior censorship -- a no-no in this country, common practice in Red China, Cuba, Iraq, Iran etc.
As for disagreement between agencies: God, I should hope so. Each agency has a different purpose, goal, agenda, etc., and its job is to look at things from that angle and protect its interests. If Agency A is doing something that might harm or interfere with Agency B, Agency B has a responsibility to bring it up and challenge the action. And why shouldn't it be public? Has Butch forgotten that we, the public, not he, the gov, are those folks' employers? We pay their salaries (and yours), Butch.
And to Betsy: Congrats on once again being first to bring a subject to public view.

--gp

There of course is a difference between "muzzling" your directors and ensuring your team is on the same policy page. One state agency should not use the media to play against another. But the difference can be a fine line.

I'm not on the inside but I would hope that spirited debate takes place in the Governor's meeting rooms, and then necessarily a collective agreement to action empties out with the directors to their agencies.

The question becomes one of whether this is an attempt to solve a non-problem, or to make a point to a particular director. Note what the legislature did with H559 - micromanaging the website language of Health and Welfare.

Of course the most famous of all muzzling was Governor Batt's executive order dictating approved screen savers for state computers....that one didn't go so well.

It will be interesting to see if there is a change in "tone" of press releases coming out. KR you might be in the position to monitor that and give an observation down the road.

Apparently the Governor cannot manage state agencies and his minion directors so the best management strategy that he can find is to "censor" press releases to make sure his administrative policies are not contradicted?

Sounds like the the Governor's "Big Brother approach" to management falls very short from his original position to hold agency directors accountable for what agencies do and say. Obviously the accountability "speech" during the election cannot be translated into action so the next best thing is to "censor" all agency press releases so that there are "no surprises" is pure nonsense.

When government speaks all people need to know are the facts. Citizens will draw their own conclusions. Censorship, in any form, is a "make work" project" that denies citizens the right to get factual information.

If there are information management issues in agencies ... get to the source and manage it accordingly. Censorship only creates a much larger problem as it only tells us "government does not work".

..PIOs.

under ed. by Roark. Want to make a bet?

what's the problem? I read the e-memo, and I think it's in line with the right of any organization's CEO to be kept informed of what his employees are telling the public about the company's business. In government it's not the responsibility of any subordinate Executive Branch employee to generate and disseminate public policy without checking with their boss first. My only surprise is that it appears somebody in the Governor's office is actually paying attention. When did that start?

And I'll tell you what. If I were the Governor, I'd have my tech people working OT taking the e-mail server message store apart address by address until I found out who forwarded that e-mail to Ms. Russell. And that person would be on the sidewalk about three minutes after that.