Public Participation Requirements: Complete and Unbiased Information

Over the past few weeks, there has been an interesting discussion over on the main NCDD discussion list about “pseudo-dialogue” and “pseudo-civic engagement” and the need for some sort of quality assurance guidelines for the public participation efforts that the new administration is bound to undertake.

The discussion touches upon many principles and critical success factors of public participation, one of which has to do with the participants’ need for complete and unbiased information. Pseudo-engagement, in this context, refers to any effort that claims to do public participation or civic engagement but in fact does not adhere to these principles.

As one example of such false labeling, Pete Peterson, executive director of Common Sense California, wrote an article in City Journal about the recent “Health Care Community Discussions,” which the Obama transition team had initiated via their Change.gov website late last year (emphasis mine):

Obama’s One-Way Social Networking

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Particularly telling were the guides that Change.gov provided for hosts and guests. Hosts, explained the six-page Host and Moderator Guide, should invite “friends, family, colleagues and neighbors,” and moderators “should not strongly advocate for specific health policy positions.” Further, “everyone should conduct the meeting like President-elect Obama would: respecting everyone, listening to everyone’s opinion, and engaging in spirited discussion without being disagreeable.” The five-page Participant Guide, meanwhile, devoted one page to over a dozen bullet points outlining the dire condition of the current health-care system, and followed it with a second page highlighting Obama’s solutions in 13 bullet points. This two-page treatment of national health policy was followed by three pages of mostly leading questions. At the conclusion of each meeting, questionnaires were collected, a consensus Group Submission was agreed upon, and the submission transmitted to the president-elect. What happened to it next is anyone’s guess.

[...]

Second, the information provided to both moderators and participants is scant and biased. Missing from the discussion materials is any mention of competing proposals or any hint of possible downsides to the president’s positions. “First sell the problem, then sell the solution,” an old sales axiom holds. Boiling hugely complex issues like health-care reform and economic stimulus down to one page of problems and one page of solutions isn’t educating—it’s marketing.

In his book, The public participation handbook : making better decisions through citizen involvement, James L. Creighton has the following to say about the need for information integrity (emphasis mine):

Chapter Six: Techniques For Getting Information to the Public

This chapter provides an overview of techniques for getting information to the public. Inside every public participation program is a good public information program. Before people can participate, they need information so they can participate in an informed manner. In particular, they need information about how a decision could affect them and their interests.

Participants need complete, unbiased information. They need the same kind of information (although perhaps written more simply) that you would provide decision makers within your own organization. And like your decision makers, if the public senses you are biasing the information to produce a particular outcome or omitting information that might change the outcome, they will stop trusting you as the source of information and start looking to others. In fact, if your organization is seen as an advocate for a particular outcome, the public will assume that you are manipulating information to produce the outcome you desire.

The media will always write stories that maximize controversy. This is their idea of newsworthiness. Interest groups will provide information that is slanted or given spin to support their particular position. They assume you will do this too.

This leaves the organization sponsoring the public participation program in a difficult position. You are usually the only potential source of complete and unbiased information. But you are also likely to be viewed with suspicion, particularly by groups advocating a particular outcome.

You must make exceptional efforts to ensure the information you give to the public is as objective as possible. You may want to have your materials reviewed by other agencies, such as regulatory agencies or an existing citizen advisory group or peer review panel. In some case, organizations have contracted with outside groups, such as the League of Women Voters (a nonpartisan organization committed to the informed involvement of the public) to write documents.

You may never convince advocacy groups that your material is objective. They have a stake in being critical. The target is the middle. The goal is to ensure that people who do not have a predetermined position perceive the information they receive from you as useful and trustworthy.

Be aware that your efforts to achieve objectivity may not be supported by people in your own organization who are more used to a public relations orientation. They may define their job as making the organization look good, even if it means spinning the story by leaving out certain facts or controlling the emphasis. One of the reasons it takes so much time to get documents reviewed inside organizations is that there can be struggles between people with a public participation orientation and people with a public relations orientation.

I’ve consulted to several government agencies for a number of years, some as many as thirty years. Based on that experience, my judgment is that in the long run, any organization comes out ahead  if it is perceived as a source for complete and unbiased information. There are times this will cause temporary embarrassment. But credibility, once lost, is very hard to regain.

He then goes on to describe “some of the most frequently used techniques for providing information to the public,” such as briefings, information repositories, mass mailing, the internet etc.

We often talk about the obvious shortcomings of e-participation as compared to face-to-face engagement. In this case, however, I see a lot of opportunities how web-based tools could be used to allow the participants to collaboratively improve the quality and completeness of the informational materials provided, in ways that could ultimately strengthen the credibility of the organizer/sponsor or convener organization.

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