By Zachary Gorchow
Executive Editor and Publisher
Posted: June 5, 2020 1:09 PM

For three months, Governor Gretchen Whitmer has been simultaneously available and unavailable to the news media to answer questions about the cascade of crises roiling Michigan – COVID-19, the Midland County floods and the uprisings taking place in response to police brutality.

For those three months, the governor has held anywhere from two to four news briefings a week where she answers from six to 10 questions at each briefing. In my nearly 18 years of covering the Capitol and four different governors, there's been nothing like it. Typically, a reporter goes to an event where a governor is speaking, waits 30 to 60 minutes for it to end and then we jam our recorders in their face at close proximity for five minutes until a press aide cuts off questioning after three or four questions and the governor moves on with their day.

Such a situation would happen maybe once or twice a week at most. What has transpired is on the one hand a remarkable amount of availibility.

But -- and you knew there was a but coming -- starting with the nighttime March 10 news briefing Ms. Whitmer held to announce the state had its first two confirmed COVID-19 cases, Ms. Whitmer understandably and rightfully changed how news conferences worked in a way to protect the health of herself, staff at the event and the reporters – and by extension everyone with whom we come in contact. Having all of us clustered around the governor in close proximity? I don't want any part of that at this point. It was awkward and uncomfortable pre-pandemic.

So what has taken place since then is the governor's press staff invites three different reporters, one from print, one from radio and one from television to serve as "pool reporters." It's not a traditional pool in the sense that usually entails one or two reporters attending an event unavailable to others and then producing all the quotes and newsworthy items said at the event for everyone to use. The governor's news briefings are livestreamed for all to see.

The pool aspect is that the Capitol press corps and reporters from around the state have agreed to an unprecedented collaboration to submit questions to the designated reporters, who will then potentially ask those questions of the governor. Only a small fraction of the questions submitted get asked.

In the early days of the outbreak, the governor supplemented these events with teleconferences where members of the Capitol press corps would have the chance to ask questions over the phone of the governor. These were a nice venue because it was all question-and-answer unlike the news briefings that tend to have a roughly 3-to-1 ratio in the minutes spent on the governor and others making presentations and general comments vs. questions and answers from reporters and officials.

It's been many, many weeks since the governor held a teleconference with reporters.

It is time to end the pooled news conference set-up. It was absolutely the right thing to do, but with the state reopening most facets of its economy, a news conference with a large number of news outlets present could be safely conducted to minimize risk. It would need to be held at a nontraditional venue. The press auditorium in the Romney Building is too small to allow for social distancing.

But there's the auditorium at the State Library that Ms. Whitmer used for her news conference last year following her budget vetoes and transfers. It's huge and could easily accommodate a large number of reporters and still keep everyone six feet apart. I've suggested that venue to the governor's press staff. Several other reporters have requested a return to more traditional news conferences.

Why does this matter?

The pooled set-up has many flaws. Reporters have greater expertise in different topics. One can't expect the nuance of a question to be properly conveyed, nor more critically whether an appropriate follow-up question will be asked. If there's one question a reporter needs answered for their story, but it doesn't get asked, their story may have to continue waiting indefinitely for publication.

Last week, I suggested to the governor's press staff it was soon time to transition back to a more traditional set-up for asking questions of the governor. Offices, restaurants, hair salons and more have reopened or will soon reopen. All of the COVID-19 data has been trending in the right direction for many weeks. It will be different – masks would be worn, everyone would need to be six feet apart and a protocol for ingress and egress from the room would be needed – but there's no reason that a more traditional news conference can't be held where reporters from across the state with their differing areas of expertise and different interests of their readers, listeners and viewers could ask questions that in many instances have been on hold for weeks.