Editorial
Tulsa World
The Tulsa World was one of several news organizations that went on a Thursday tour of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services facilities for illegal alien children at Fort Sill.
You can read the Tulsa World description of the facilities on page A1 of Friday’s newspaper.
The immigration policy that made those facilities necessary are controversial, but the nature of the facilities became part of the story last week, when U.S. Rep. Jim Bridenstine tried and failed to get inside. Bridenstine subsequently was promised a Saturday tour, but has bristled at the rules imposed by HHS and has promised to resist their efforts to control his oversight. Stay tuned on that one.
The Thursday media tour of the facilities came with several restrictions. The tour would be brief (planned for only 40 minutes). No recording devices were allowed. No interaction with staff or the children was allowed. All questions had to be sent to a public relations man for HHS in Washington after the tour. No photos were allowed, although HHS provided pictures after the tour ended.
The tour was a take-it-or-leave-it proposition, and — unhappy as we were with the restrictions — we decided to take it.
It’s not ideal, but neither is it unusual for journalists to work under restrictions imposed by people in power. We could cite examples from foreign countries and war zones, but don’t need to go that far.
For no good reason, Tulsa County district judges routinely don’t allow photographers in or around their courtrooms. Recording devices, which would only enhance accuracy of court reporting, aren’t allowed either. We complain about it and take every opportunity to lobby for changes in courthouse policy, but we go ahead and report the news inside the courtrooms, despite the restrictions.
We chose to be part of the Fort Sill tour so that we could report what was available for what it was worth. How much is it worth? We’ll let the readers — fully informed about the restrictions on the process — be the judge of that.
While it might be the only time the media is allowed inside the facility, we hardly look at this as the final word on what’s going on there. We’ll be back when Bridenstine has his tour on Saturday. We support his efforts to bring greater transparency to the facility.
If HHS officials imagine that offering the tour will allow them to use our credibility to back up their transparency on this issue, let us disabuse them. The tour is, in fact, strong evidence of their lack of transparency. It makes us more suspicious that they’re hiding something, not less so.
We’ve seen your orchestrated tour and reported it. Now, can we see the rest of the story?
Sometimes it feels like we’re living in an alternate universe.
So the federal government will not allow these illegal immigrants to be photographed or recorded due to “privacy concerns.” Where is my privacy? I am an American, been here over 50 years, paying taxes, obeying the laws, but yet my telephone calls and text messages are monitored and likely recorded, as are my website visits and probably television channels I watch. Where is my privacy?