President's Report, February 2009

Dear MRE members and friends:

One of President Obama’s first acts after taking office Jan. 20 was to sign a memorandum instructing all government agencies to review their procedures and look for ways to be more open and transparent.

A step in the right direction, and one applauded by MRE, was the decision Feb. 26 by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to allow the media to honor the war dead by granting access to the return of flag-draped caskets to Dover Air Force Base, Del.

Rather than politicizing the process, as some have argued, this media access will enable the media, with the permission of the families on a case-by-case basis, to honor the sacrifices of these young men and women.

As those of us who have covered the funerals of war dead know, we treat these events with the solemn dignity they deserve and very often provide for the families the last public recognition of the sacrifices their loved ones have made.

While this decision is absolutely the right one, the real test of Obama’s desire for a more open and transparent government will be in how Freedom of Information Act requests are handled.

The bureaucracy that surrounds the FOIA process has become stupefyingly obstructionist, either by design or mismanagement. Records that have nothing to do with national security are sometimes classified to protect reputations and bad business decisions.

A case in point is a FOIA request filed by MRE on Dec. 10, 2007 on behalf of one of our members. It was a request that my predecessor, Jim Crawley, had agreed to make and asked me to follow through on it after he became too ill to handle his duties as president of our organization.

The documents we are seeking do not pertain to national security but could prove embarrassing to certain individuals and organizations in the Pentagon.

After the initial request was filed I was informed the documents could not be released because they were the subject of an Inspector General’s investigation. On Dec. 12, 2008, the IG issued its final report on the investigation.

One month later, I inquired as to when MRE might receive the documents. I was informed that not only had the FOIA analyst assigned to the request been changed, but so had the tracking number and that there apparently was a problem finding out who was in possession of the documents I had requested.

As of this writing, 14 months after the request was first filed, there is no indication that the documents will be produced any time soon. As anyone who has ever made a FOIA request knows, these delaying tactics are not unusual.

Whether Obama’s stated intentions for transparency will ever filter down into the lower levels of Pentagon bureaucracy, where FOIAs are sent to die of neglect and old age, remains to be seen. But, we are not holding our breath.

Knight Conference

Nine members of MRE, including Vice President Don North and board members Mike Francis, Lou Hansen and Sig Christenson recently attended a seminar at the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism on “U.S. Military: New President, New Outlook?” They heard from a variety of military, media, and policy makers over several days and took a trip to Quantico for a demonstration of Marine Corps artillery and helicopter fire power. The general conclusion was that despite all the pre-election promises and hyperbole, not much significant change appears in the works near-term for this administration.

MRE contest

If you have not already sent in your entries for this year’s contest, please do so as soon as possible. Enter early and often. And encourage anyone on your staff who has done any stories on the military, national security, national defense, veterans or intelligence to enter. You can download the entry forms here. http://www.militaryreporters.org/pdfs/Entry%20form%20contest2009.pdf

In an effort to increase our visibility we took out an ad on the Poynter organization Web site for a week. We don’t have the results back yet on whether the ad has helped boost our entries but should know in a few weeks. The deadline for this year’s contest is May 1. The winners will be announced in late summer and the awards presented at our annual meeting in October, the date of which will be announced in a month or so.

Web site redesign

Under the direction of board member Kelly Kennedy and with the assistance of her colleague Scotty Loewen, our Web site redesign is moving ahead. Within the next couple of months we hope to have a Web site that will be more interactive, more relevant, and more user-friendly with much more material on it than we now have. Again, your suggestions are most welcome. Send them to me at ronmartzmre@gmail.com.

Membership and fund raising

As with the contest, please encourage any of your colleagues who have done any work related to military affairs to consider joining the organization. We are looking for new members, new ideas, and fresh perspectives on the issues that concern us most.

Take care and stay safe.

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