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Read this, its about Hillary and transparency and track records
http://www.cjr.org/the_second_opinion/health_reporting_obama_administration.phpThis is just an excerpt but people should read the entire article..
What Terry and Zaitz encountered seems to be fairly standard practice at federal agencies these days—stonewalling and running out the clock on reporters. The Obama administration came to power promising “the most transparent” administration in US history and an “unprecedented level of openness.” Instead, whether they are old timers or relative newbies, work at small outlets or large ones, belong to the trade press or live at the top of the news pecking order, health reporters told me the same thing: trying to get useful information from government agencies can be a maddening, prolonged exercise. Even those who are less critical mention instances when an agency dodged or declined to answer their questions. “There’s no question this administration has had all agencies on a very short leash,” says Politico’s food safety reporter Helena Bottmiller Evich. “There’s a strong pull to keep everyone on message. Requests are getting cleared pretty high up the chain. They don’t want them to be off message and say something that causes tension with the White House.”
These grievances aren’t unfamiliar, of course—journalists are forever complaining about government flacks. Still, it wasn’t always this way. Reporters who have covered Washington for decades talk of a time when they could reach almost anyone at the agencies, even an agency head, by phone. Jim Dickinson, who has covered the Food and Drug Administration since the 1970s for several trade publications and runs the news site FDAWebview, said in the pre-Clinton days he could walk into the FDA and talk to anybody who wanted to talk. Gail Wilensky, who headed the Medicare program under the first George Bush, says reporters could call her directly, because “to me that was smart and helpful.” Reporters point to the Clinton years as a turning point, when Hillary Clinton imposed tight rules about talking to the media on members of her team crafting the doomed Clinton health plan. Controls got progressively tighter during the administration of George W. Bush and tighter still under Obama.
A public information officer (PIO) who has worked for several federal agencies dealing with science and health and is currently employed by one confirmed the “short leash” assessment from Politico’s Evich and the changes that have occurred in Washington’s relationship to the press. “This is a brand new day for how the administration clamps down to manage communications,” he told me. “The public information model”—one that provided timely information to the public and the press about taxpayer-funded research—“is dead and has now been replaced by a highly message-controlled environment.”
These grievances aren’t unfamiliar, of course—journalists are forever complaining about government flacks. Still, it wasn’t always this way. Reporters who have covered Washington for decades talk of a time when they could reach almost anyone at the agencies, even an agency head, by phone. Jim Dickinson, who has covered the Food and Drug Administration since the 1970s for several trade publications and runs the news site FDAWebview, said in the pre-Clinton days he could walk into the FDA and talk to anybody who wanted to talk. Gail Wilensky, who headed the Medicare program under the first George Bush, says reporters could call her directly, because “to me that was smart and helpful.” Reporters point to the Clinton years as a turning point, when Hillary Clinton imposed tight rules about talking to the media on members of her team crafting the doomed Clinton health plan. Controls got progressively tighter during the administration of George W. Bush and tighter still under Obama.
A public information officer (PIO) who has worked for several federal agencies dealing with science and health and is currently employed by one confirmed the “short leash” assessment from Politico’s Evich and the changes that have occurred in Washington’s relationship to the press. “This is a brand new day for how the administration clamps down to manage communications,” he told me. “The public information model”—one that provided timely information to the public and the press about taxpayer-funded research—“is dead and has now been replaced by a highly message-controlled environment.”