little flag right in the copy that says "analysis" or "commentary." I 

 mean the reader has to be blind if he or she can't see that we are 

 letfng them know that this is either someone's opinion or their 

 p§(rticular point of view on something. That's a responsibility that we 

 have and for the first part of my discussion, I'd like to address my 

 remarks to the relationships between the print news media and their 

 sources of environmental and outdoor news. Because I think there're 

 some problems there. Bill Brown has regaled you for quite a few 

 minutes here with some of the most incredible horror stories I've ever 

 seen and he's shown me some things there that, if I were managing 

 editor of one of those newspapers, I'd either have a very bad ulcer or 

 I'd quit... some serious problems. But I think that one thing that you 

 have to realize, and especially as representatives of state and federal 

 agencies, is that the news media are going to cover you. Whether you 

 like it or whether you don't, we're going to try to find out what your 

 doing. You can make the job difficult for us by trying to over-manage 

 what's coming out of your offices. 



You can make it sometimes too easy for us by spoon feeding 

 information on a daily and weekly basis but the bottom line, friends, is 

 the fact that the news media, if it's going to be responsible at all, 

 you're going to get covered. In some cases--and Bill has very aptly 

 pointed out several--you're going to be covered badly. In other cases, 

 and I hope this is the situation at the newspaper where I work, you're 

 going to be covered well and fairly. 



I guess the underlying philosophy is the public money, public 

 information syndrome. You are, in one way or another, spending 

 public money. Now I've heard Fish and Game Department people come 

 right back at me when I start to argue this point, "We're not spending 

 tax money." In some cases you are spending tax money. You're 

 spending Dingell-Johnson funds and Pitman-Robertson funds, but the 

 bulk of the money in most state Fish and Game agencies comes from 

 fishing and hunting licenses. Now friends, if that's not public money, 

 I don't know what it is. It may change our responsibility as far as 

 dealing with the outdoors--hunting and fishing and that kind of 

 recreational news--but it's public money. It's money that someone has 

 put on the counter to buy a hunting and fishing license. I have a 

 responsibility in my newspaper to let people know just exactly what 

 you, as Fish and Game Department officials, are doing with that money. 

 And I'm going to do everything I possibly can to fulfill that 

 responsibility. 



Another thing that I think that you have to realize, and most 

 people that I've had dealings with in my years in environmental and 

 outdoors news have been very, very well aware of this and it's worked 

 out well for me. But I think another thing that you need to realize is 

 that state and federal agencies need the press. There is no 

 conceivable way that any of you can afford to, for example, put 

 together a direct mail campaign so that everything that you think the 

 public needs to know about gets to the public. That's rediculous to 

 even try to do something like that. There's no way that you can 

 handle it without public and commercial news media. 



