Government public communications is increasingly controlled by top elected officials

A couple days ago it was reported that political appointees to the public communications unit of the Centers for Disease Control shaped messaging to be more about supporting President Trump and less about the science of the coronavirus ("Trump ally who sought to change CDC Covid reports claims he was fighting 'deep state'," Guardian).

Also there is the matter of the appointment of to head of the US Agency for Global Media (formerly known as the US Information Agency, and parent of various US external communications programs like Radio Free Europe) and the anti-journalist/journalism acts that have followed ("CEO Of US Agency For Global Media Under Fire," NPR).

Artists and volunteers painting a mural at Chambers Park in Annapolis, to call attention to the Black Lives Matter movement and the killing  of Breonna Taylor by police in Louisville, Kentucky.  Photo: Paul Gillespie, Annapolis Capital-Gazette.

And the Washington Post has a story ("Md. officials wanted Black leaders not to use the term ‘police brutality.’ They resisted.") about how in Maryland, the Governor's Office of Community Initiatives ordered the Commission on African American History and Culture and the Banneker-Douglass Museum of African American to not use the term "police brutality" in association with a press release about the painting of a mural in Chambers Park, Annapolis, honoring Breonna Taylor, who was killed by Louisville (Kentucky) Police in a botched raid. From the article:

The commission’s chair, Tamara Wilson, said an official from the Governor’s Office of Community Initiatives, which oversees the commission and the museum, told her not to use “police brutality.” But Wilson declined to provide additional details.

Both the office of Gov. Larry Hogan (R) and the community initiatives office said there is no blanket ban on the term “police brutality,” which was included in a recent Baltimore Sun editorial column co-written by Sam Abed, Hogan’s secretary of the Department of Juvenile Services.

But Hogan spokeswoman Shareese Churchill acknowledged that the phrase was removed from the museum’s July 3 news release about a Breonna Taylor mural and replaced with the term “systemic racism.” Churchill said the change was made because the latter “is more of an umbrella term, a broader term, intended to strengthen the message.”

But as journalists ought to know, this is nothing new, and has been a pronounced phenomenon with government public communications for the past 15 or more years.

The George W. Bush Administration created a unit in the State Department for "public diplomacy" out of the belief that opponents to US actions in the Mideast didn't understand properly what the US was doing ("Speeding the Strange Death of American Public Diplomacy: The George H. W. Bush Administration and the U.S. Information Agency," Diplomatic History, 2010).

In DC's local government, each succeeding mayoral administration tightens the screws a little harder on public communications.  When I first started active involvement in local affairs, each agency pretty much controlled its own PR.  With the election of Adrian Fenty, the Mayor's office began to take control of the public communications activities of each agency.  Each mayor to follow has taken this further.

And when I worked briefly for Baltimore County government, I learned that all press releases from agencies, on various projects, had to be coordinated with, approved, and released by the County Executive's Office and the public communications staff there.

This is true, increasingly, throughout government.  Democrats and Republicans.  Conservatives and Labour and the Scottish National Party, the various parties in Germany, etc.

A more visible and recent example is with Boris Johnson as Prime Minister of the UK ("The dangers of No.10’s attempt to take back control of government communications," Institute for Government; "UK civil servants fear press office centralisation could 'undermine democracy'," Guardian).

And yes, it's a problem, because political goals and objectives shape what is communicated and what is said, too often in ways that is misleading.

-- "Public Relations and Propaganda: Restrictions on Executive Agency Activities," Congressional Research Service, 2005
-- "How the American government is trying to control what you think," Washington Post, 2015 (This is a Republican criticism of the Obama Administration, I wonder what they say about the Trump Administration...)
-- "Political Control Over Public Communications by Government Scientists," Harvard Law School Working Paper No. 17-44)
-- "Can Government Public Communications Elicit Undue Trust? Exploring the Interaction between Symbols and Substantive Information in Communications," Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 2020
-- "Why does the right keep pretending the left runs Britain?," Guardian

But Republicans are definitely worse on the science side. This goes back to Gingrich and his shutdown of the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment ("Some things are beyond understanding (well, not really)"). He knew that facts would get in the way of the things he wanted to do.

And the Trump Administration takes the problem to new heights.

Social media.  Especially with social media, Twitter, manipulation of video to show opponents in a false and misleading light ("Another fake Nancy Pelosi video goes viral on Facebook," CNN), alt right media, etc.

-- "The age of Twitter: Donald J. Trump and the politics of debasement," Critical Studies in Media Communication, 2017
-- "‘Very good chance’ democracy is doomed in America, says Haidt," The Australian
-- "Social Media Is Warping Democracy," The Atlantic.