“This is on the honor system. If you honestly think that you are more deserving of having your question asked every single day than the 35 other reporters who never get a question asked, then that’s your prerogative.

---

Noting that Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo has held a daily press conference for over a month now, Josh Block, the Governor’s press secretary, sent out an email with some interesting numbers.

“Over the past six days, we have answered a total of 82 questions, averaging about 14 a day – not counting the additional questions that are answered in the follow-up conference call,” writes Block. “Those 82 questions came from a total of 34 reporters. In fact, 42 of those questions – more than half – have come from just 8 reporters. While it’s great that we have been able to answer so many questions, it’s also clear that there are 35 additional reporters – more than half of the press list – who would like to ask a question but have not yet had an opportunity to do so.”

The solution presented by the Governor’s office? Limit each reporter to one question every other day:

“In that spirit, and in the interest of fairness, we are asking those of you who had a question answered on any given day to choose not to submit one the following day,” continued Block. “To be clear, we are not changing the functionality of submission in any way – this is on the honor system. We are simply asking everyone to be respectful of one another and to give space for voices that haven’t yet had an opportunity to be heard.”

This new policy, presented as a way to level the playing field and allow more people the chance to ask questions, in fact accomplishes the opposite. The new policy unfairly disadvantage small news outlets – like UpriseRI, What’s Up Newport, RI News Today, GoLocal Prov – and local independent reporters.

Big news outlets, like the Providence Journal and Channel 12/WPRI, field enough reporters that the can still get several questions before the Governor, even if their reporters take every other day off. Channel 12 has 11 reporters who have asked questions through the system so far, Alexandra Leslie, Anita Baffoni, Walt Buteau, Hannah Dickison, Kim Kalunian, Steph Machado, Gina Marini, Ted Nesi, Eli Sherman, Kat Walsh and Tim White. The Providence Journal has seven: Brian Amaral, Patrick Anderson, Kathy Gregg, Wayne Miller, Tom Mooney, Katie Mulvaney and Paul Parker, one for every day of the week.

The Associated Press and Providence Business News have two reporters registered in the system, so they can easily ask a question every other day. Channel 6 has five reporters asking questions, six if you count an account labeled “ABC News.” Channel 10 has five reporters asking questions.

WPRO radio has five reporters asking questions through the system, while The Public’s Radio has three.

As far as I can tell, looking at all the questions asked so far and not counting those questions sent in through anonymous accounts, every other news outlet has one reporter asking questions, which means their ability to ask questions and get them answered by the Governor will be cut in half.

Perhaps some of these reporters will sign up with phantom accounts, so that they might still get their questions in. I’m pretty sure Uprise RI could do this. But one of the founding principles of Uprise RI is honesty: We won’t lie about who we are to get the story.

Smaller outlets ask questions the big media isn’t. Today for instance, while it seemed the entire Rhode Island press was enraptured by the possibility that Governor Raimondo and Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza weren’t communicating enough about how Providence’s park and green space closures were going to be enforced, Uprise RI was focused on low wage workers on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic and Michael Bilow at Motif was asking an important question about the Wyatt hunger strike.

If news outlets like Motif and Uprise RI are left out of the conversation, questions about prisons, the homeless and low-wage workers are much less likely to be asked.

When I expressed these objections to Josh Block, he tried to cast this process as one of opening the process to more reporters and more perspectives, and implied that if I continue to ask a question every day, I was being selfish and discriminatory.

“I think you would agree that Richard Asinof at ConvergenceRI, and Liza Gordon at Noticias Rhode Island, and Gina Macris at Developmental Disability News, and Christy Nadalin at East Bay Life, also all represent important perspectives and have unique audiences,” said Block. “And that list goes on. But while we have answered around 40 of your questions over the past 30 days, we have not been able to answer a single question from any of them.”

I agree, of course, that those reporters represent important perspectives. And contrary to Block’s assertion, Richard Asinof did get a question in, as I wrote about here.

In a separate email, Block continued:

“You don’t have to agree to it. This is on the honor system. If you honestly think that you are more deserving of having your question asked every single day than the 35 other reporters who never get a question asked, then that’s your prerogative. All we’re asking for is a basic level of professional courtesy among one another, and every other person – including others who have been asking questions each day – have been understanding of that fact.”

As for the idea that news venues with multiple reporters will get more questions in, Block defended the new system, saying, “Steph Machado who covers the Providence beat and Eli Sherman who covers politics for WPRI.com are bringing different perspectives.” He left out the other nine reporters WPRI is fielding in the system.

In the real world, press conferences are wild things. All the reporters shout their questions, hoping to get the Governor’s attention, and if you’re lucky and she likes you, you get your question addressed. In the COVID-19 era press conferences, reporters submit their questions through an online platform, and the questions are read in the order that they are submitted.

The world has changed, and maybe some media outlets don’t like it. I certainly have had to adjust the way I do my work. I used to pride myself on showing up and getting the stories other media companies weren’t interested in. I still try to do that, but I can’t show up anymore. Like most of us working from home, I’m adapting.

The new rules instituted by the Governor’s office are unfair, and discriminate against smaller media outlets such as mine. If the Governor’s office wants to institute a rule change such as this, it needs to make sure that an entire media outlet can only ask one question every other day, not each reporter. The problem, of course, is that there is no way Channel 12 and the Providence Journal would ever agree to a system that limits them to a single question every other day.

Neither will UpriseRI.