BOOMER PHARISAISM

[Draggingtree]

First Things :

Boomer Pharisaism

by Barton Swaim

 

October 2016

I live in a capital city. As in every capital in America, the city’s chief business is government. Government agencies are everywhere—large and powerful ones, small and unnecessary ones; departments, commissions, boards, authorities. Nearly every one of these entities has its own public information officer, or PIO, a person whose job it is to explain the agency’s acts to the public. In most cases, these PIOs don’t actually do much of anything, for the simple reason that the public usually doesn’t care very much what the agency does. The occasional press release and response to a Freedom of Information Act request are about all that’s required of these “communications” specialists.

 

There is one circumstance, though, in which it matters what a PIO writes or says, and that is when there has been some scandal or fiasco. When an agency director has been arrested on drug charges, say, or when there has been a dramatic failure to provide some essential service, the PIO must stretch his expressive gifts to the limit. What’s needed is a certain style of expression, and the moderately competent ones know instinctively how to generate it.