For parents and citizens in the State of Washington I've copied in the MEDIA STRATEGY from the Washington State Child Death Review Guidelines - 2005 Revision.
In RED and BOLD I've highlighted some revelatory text from the Department of Social and Health Services' (DSHS) manual.
My response, comments, witnessing and my opinion as a 20 year Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) and Department of Early Learning (DEL) insider and whistle blower are in BLUE.
Media strategy DOH child death review guidelines 2005
8.5 The Need for a Media Strategy
Having a media strategy in place for how to respond to media requests will help the Team be clear about how media requests are handled. A media strategy not only protects information that cannot become part of the public domain, and, at the same time, permits interaction with the press in a way that helps the Team achieve its goals.
Analyzing DSHS's media campaign I see the Child Death Review Teams will not be holding the DSHS's (and the Department of Early Learning, DEL) managers' accountable (See "A good media strategy has three components). The last time I saw a report holding any manager accountable was in 1994 and 2001. A jury held managers accountable in 2008.
A good media strategy has three components:
1. A policy of how a team interacts with the media
2. A proactive media relations plan that addresses public education and prevention campaigns
3. A media management protocol
A media strategy will help a Team:
• Generate positive publicity
• Gain the support of governmental agencies and the general public for its work and goals.
The media strategies will not be telling the public if any of child deaths were preventable, just a plan to generate positive publicity.
8.6 Guiding Principles for Developing a Media Strategy
A written strategy lends consistency to a Team's protocols and establishes a procedural order.
Some of the principles that might guide development of a media strategy include:
• Preventing child deaths is a primary goal for the CDR Team, but it is also a responsibility of the entire community.
This is where the parents and community will be blamed while they make no mention of DSHS or DEL managers.
• The review Team supports the public's right to know what it does generally.
• Confidentiality concerns are important to protect the exchange of information among
Team members and with the professional community, encourage open participation and
keep matters private which are not public business.
If they are doing anything other than public business the group must be disbanded and a report made to the public that the group had violated the public trust.
• The Team will always answer the media's questions honestly, including, as appropriate, telling the media when it cannot answer questions. Deception, pretension and omission hinder good media relationships.
HA! I wonder if they wrote that with a straight face?
• When speaking on behalf of the Team, one Team member should be designated as the spokesperson for the media. This member should be knowledgeable and articulate. The Team coordinator is a likely choice. Alternatively, the Team can consider using the public information officer at one of its member agencies.
• All Team members are aware of the Team's confidentiality policies and Statutory
mandates establishing them, even if they are unlikely to speak with the media.
You can read in another post of a DEL committee that suspended their taxpayer paid for meeting to try to figure out how they could take away the lone, sole parent on the committee, take away his first amendment rights. As Dave Barry would say, "I am not making this up."
The Team needs a cooperative media and supportive general public to reach its goals.
The media policy should be written with the participation of all Team members.
The media policy should be distributed to all Team members.
As you can read nowhere is there a goal to hold the DSHS and DEL managers accountable for failure to operate the agency as required under RCW; and then be transparent to parents and the public about that information.
A law requiring each DSHS and DEL committee to receive a copy of the State Auditor's Whistle Blower Program and the US Bill of Rights be distribued at each meeting might be in order.
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