Transparency’s all the rage these days. And accountability. Politicians and public servants promise lots of both. “Our commitment to transparency is evidenced by our actions,” Kristina Keneally declared in parliament in November 2009.
With Kristina’s words ringing in my ears I approach a NSW government department with a request for an interview. “We value transparency”, its website declares, “the exchange of current and relevant information.”
This will be easy, I think to myself.
“Before we can consider your interview request,” writes the department’s Publicist, “we need to know what publication has agreed to run the story. Can you confirm the title of the publication, the editor you are dealing with and provide a list of questions you wish to put to (us).”
“Does this mean,” I ask in an email “that if (your department) doesn’t like the nature of my questions that no interview will be forthcoming?”
The Publicist writes back: “As I am sure you appreciate, (our department) is approached frequently regarding interviews. Given our limited resources in terms of both time and people, we would require you to: a) Confirm that (the publication) has commissioned the story, including written confirmation from the editor and (b) Provide questions in writing. (Our department) will then respond in writing.”
The publicist already knows which publication I’m writing for. She’s written to the editor: “Can you confirm that you have agreed to run this story and your understanding of what the story is about?”
As she already knows, my article is about the Australian film industry. In the preparation of it I wanted to have a chat with a member of Screen NSW - part of the NSW Ministry for the Arts. I was particularly interested in a scriptwriting workshop that Screen NSW runs called
“Aurora”. Our film industry constantly bemoans the lack of good screenplays and, as a practicing filmmaker, I was curious to sound out Screen NSW’s thoughts about the intensive workshopping of screenplays - a process that involves lots of both money and scriptwriting ‘experts’ or ‘gurus’. (Yes, the word ‘guru’ is frequently used.) Does ‘Aurora’ produce better screenplays than those written by individual writers without the benefit of workshopping, ‘experts’ or ‘gurus’? A topic of interest to all of us in the film industry and one about which there are (as there should be) many points of view.
I write back to the Publicist: “Is Screen NSW really so overwhelmed with requests for interviews that (no member of staff) can set aside an hour to talk with a freelance journalist?”
I get no response. “It is a dialogue I am interested in – not in the provision of a list of questions to which I get pre-digested answers. If this is the route that Screen NSW insists on the ‘interview’ might just as well take place in cyberspace. Why does Screen NSW feel the need to control the information about it and its activities in the way your emails imply?”
Again, no response.
The person I wished to talk with at Screen NSW about ‘Aurora’ is an experienced industry practitioner and, I suspect, has quite different views to my own about the best way to develop quality screenplays. I had anticipated a lively dialogue with him – as one would hope to be the case in an industry that seeks to provide a diverse range of films for diverse Australian and international audiences. But to have a chat with him I needed to get past the tax-payer funded government Publicist – a figure in this day and age whose primary job seems to be obstructing the free flow of information to the public.
I persevere with my emails to the non responsive Publicist. “I have always approached interviews as a dialogue,” I write, “that starts with one question or observation and then progresses as any dialogue does - in directions that cannot be predicted in advance.”
The Publicist gets back to me eventually, insisting there can be no interview unless I provide my written questions in advance. What if I think of a new question during the interview? I ask. One that I have not put in writing in advance? Can I ask it?
It is at this point that the Publicist informs me that there will be no face to face interview. The ‘interview’ will take the form of questions submitted in writing that will be answered in writing. Fearful that I may, this past few decades, have been labouring under a misapprehension as to the meaning of the word ‘interview’, I reach for my Funk and Wagnalls and am reminded that an interview is “a conversation conducted, as by a reporter, with a person from whom information is sought…a record of such a conversation.”
While I am at it I check on the Funk and Wagnall’s definitions of ‘transparency: “Having the property of transmitting rays of light through its substance…easily understood, very clear, without guile or concealment, open, frank, candid.”
Time is precious, however, and I did not want to get into a semantic argument with the Publicist as to whether or not written responses to written questions qualifies as an ‘interview’. If the interview must take place in cyberspace, so be it – even if this is a very cumbersome way of engaging in a dialogue. I asked my first question: How much does the Aurora scriptwriting workshop cost and how many participants are there in it?
The Publicist wrote back to tell me that she required all of my written questions at once. Not one at a time. There was no way I was going to be able to trick Screen NSW into a dialogue.
I decide to move further up the food chain and ask the NSW Minister for the Arts, Virginia Judge if the Keneally government has redefined ‘interview’ such that written responses to written questions now qualifies as an “interview”.
I await a reply, fearful that I may have to notify Funk and Wagnall’s that they must add a new definition to their dictionary entry.
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