If you read and watch
the news -- especially in times of disaster or when a crime is under
investigation -- it's likely you've been fed the information by a
trained professional.
These
government public relations officials are voices of your city, your
police, your courthouse -- even on a normal day. They're the people who
often provide the public and media access to government records and
buffer government employees from the public.
But
are public information officers there to give the public everything
it's entitled to? Or are they there to mold information and release
whatever it is that their agencies believe the public should know?
It
may depend on which agency you speak to, said Kelly McBride, an ethics
group leader at the Poynter Institute, a media training center in St.
Petersburg.
"There are some
great public information officers out there," McBride said. "But, there
are also public information officers with conflicting loyalties.
"They are sometimes more loyal to their agencies and their bosses than they are to the public's interest," McBride said.
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