It’s true. If any of you have ever had the misfortune of trying to get hold of any information, however small or trivial or well known, you will know how soul destroying it is to talk to these people.
There has been a worrying trend over the years of media offices becoming less and less helpful, delegating their responsibilities to external PR companies and simply redirecting you to them if you have a query.
The DH of course can’t do this, but they are infested with willfully ignorant drones that either refuse to answer your question or have plausible deniability over its answer. Just this morning I asked a fairly straightforward legal question on the interaction between pharma companies and GPs – it wasn’t answered but rather – and this is a common theme – I was told to repeat my question slowly so the media officer could write it down, then asked for my email address for it to be replied to.
My deadline was four hours ago, as I told them – still no reply. And this is a quick legal question that they should really know off-hand. It is annoying, but I think it is more sinister than this. The government is allowing the DH to deliberately frustrate the media with vagaries, lack of comment or no comment at all. Next time you read ‘a DH spokesman said’ really look at the quote and see if it actually answers anything relating to the crux of the story. I will guarantee in 90% of cases, it won’t.
Why is this block on information allowed? Another example: Last week I rang up about the health reforms. There is currently a ‘listening exercise’ going on for about three months on the health reforms where everything will be put on hold so the government can hear about how much it will fuck the NHS. I see the Guardian is at an event so I ring the DH for future ‘roadshows’ that are expected to take place across the country. I get told categorically that the media will not be given a list of events of places and will simply have to use releases for any stories.
This is ludicrous – I do not wish to regurgitate a piece of poorly written DH propaganda on how amazingly well the roadshow is going. I want to talk to Lansley, Cameron and co. myself and get the mood of the thing – all the things a press release cannot give (and what is killing modern journalism).
UPDATE: I have found the list for the 'listening exercise': http://www.regionalvoices.net/2011/04/nhs-future-forum-listening-events-programme-hosted-by-regional-voices/ - however, press still not allowed. Apparently they just want to listen, not be asked anything...
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