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Public Defenseless
488 | How Public Defenders Can Fight for Our Clients and for Funding by Engaging with the Media w/Maggie Shepard and Bob McGovern
01:03:10
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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. Welcome back to Public Defenseless with Hunter Parnell as we explore the rot in the criminal justice system and what we can do about it.
- [00:18]
B
Hey there, everybody.
- [00:19]
A
Welcome back to another fantastic episode. Today. I was joined by two amazing public defender comm specialists from around the country. Joining me today is Bob McGovern, comms director and special counsel for the Massachusetts Committee for Public Counsel Services. And joining us once again is Maggie Shepard, comms director for the law offices of the New Mexico Public Defender. And what are we talking about today? Well, folks, this is a little bit of the talk that I got to give at the American Bar Association Public Defender Summit back in April of this year. Today's episode is all about how public defenders can improve their media relations. And the high points for today's episode, the through line for it, folks, is when you listen to how Bob and Maggie talk about media relations. I hope you take away that because of both of their experience of being journalists and being reporters and being on the other side of of the media game, that they fundamentally understand how to do media relations, how public defenders should engage in the public conversation better than any attorney possibly could. And it's because it's a different training, it's a different experience. The insights offered by these two individuals are ones that I know are missing in most, if not the majority of public defender offices around the country. And that's because in most public offender offices, we don't have a media team. Many public offender offices have no interest in engaging with the media whatsoever. Those that do, I would say that the majority of them, the people who are their, quote, unquote, media person, are an attorney. Maybe that attorney used to be a journalist, but for the most part, they're just an attorney in the office who feels comfortable with the media. And lastly, we don't really train this skill in the room. At the American Bar Association Summit, I asked all of the public defenders who were there, how many of you have a dedicated training program for your line defenders, your supervisors, your chiefs on how to deal with the media? And the only officers that raised their hands were the one who had people like Bob and Maggie in their staff, which is a vast minority. So I say all of this, and I hope you really take in this episode, because in the same way that public defender agencies need to prioritize data collection by hiring specialists who can actually do that work, in the same way that public defender agencies need to be prioritizing social work, mental health care, professional investigators, paralegals, all of the staff that make it possible for public defense to function optimally, they need to have that same prioritization with media relations. For decades, prosecutors and police have dominated the public messaging domain. And I believe in my heart of hearts that part of the reason that we have such a pro police universe that we live in is because public defenders have have completely ceded the public message campaign. And if we are ever to exist in a country where we have the political ability to get the type of decarceral non mass incarceration policies that we believe will make our community safer, then we need to participate in the public conversation. Folks, we cannot opt out, we cannot walk away, we cannot be afraid. We have to be willing and ready to combat the narratives that are put out there by police and prosecutors. And I think the only way public offenders can do that is if they have the dedicated professionals like Maggie and Bob on their staff to help guide us through the treacherous world that can be media relations. As always folks, if you're liking the show, like subscribe. 5 star rating 5 star review Feel free to reach out to me on Twitter, Instagram, via email or on Blue Sky. If you are liking what you're hearing and you would like to contribute to the ongoing cost of production for the Public Defenseless podcast, you can go down below to PayPal, Patreon or Stripe where you can contribute for as little as $5 a month or as much as you feel you can afford to give. As a reminder folks, I take no sponsorship money. I do no advertising reads. This show is funded predominantly from the generous contributions of listeners like yourself and out of my own pocket. So if you're liking what you're hearing and you would like to contribute in some meaningful way, you can go down below and subscribe on Patreon today. If you do so, you will gain access to the video vers of the show. You will get the episodes a day early. And both of those things mean you will get to see my adorable miniature Dots and Puppy Beans, my co host extraordinaire who is once again been scooped up from his mid introduction nap. Folks, marathon introduction recording Beans is getting. He is demanding some form of compensation for the work that he is doing. Put in overtime folks, and in order to compensate Bean fully, I need you to subscribe on Patreon today. And now without anything more from me, let's get to the episode. Bob and Maggie, welcome to the Public Defense Podcast. How are y' all doing today?
- [05:38]
C
Fantastic. Thanks.
- [05:39]
B
Very good, Very good.
- [05:40]
A
Good. Excited to speak with both y' all about a topic that is near and dear to my heart. Public Defenders in the media. What I gotta talk about at the ABA Public Defender Summit, and something that I think you are both really trying to lead the way nationally to get public defenders to understand the importance of. Of communication specialists, of having a comms team, all that and more. Maggie, you have been on the show before, so for everybody who is curious about you, who you are, how you came to be doing all this, go back and check out that episode, if you don't mind. Bob, if you could just introduce yourself a little bit. How is it that you came to be doing this work with CPCs?
- [06:17]
B
So I'm a lifelong reporter. I was a reporter from the age of 15 until basically I started this job. I was a sports writer. I wrote for a business publication out your way in Boulder, Colorado, and I was a columnist for the Boston Herald. I've been on tv, radio, all that kind of stuff, and then went to law school, sort of in the middle of all that, and became a lawyer. And yeah, I mean, honestly, I didn't really want to do this. I didn't think of this as a potential landing spot. What I thought I'd be doing at age 43 was working for the New York Times. But I had two different newspapers that had given me opportunities to go bankrupt. The Rocky Mountain News was. Seemed willing to open their door to me back in 2008, and they went bankrupt. And the day I found out that news, I grabbed my LSAT book and studied for the next possible test. And then after I passed the bar, I worked for the Boston Herald, and they too went bankrupt. They're still around, but I didn't really want to stick around for the thrilling conclusion of whatever that was. And so I left. I spent a year in what I would call purgatory doing law school admissions. And then this job opened up and I came here and it's been six years now, and, you know, it turns out at the end of the day that this ended up being my New York Times. I very much enjoy what I do and believe very much in the mission of what CPCs and other similarly situated agencies do. So that's how I got here. I. I'm a reporter and a lawyer, and I think in this particular position, I get to sort of mix those two things pretty well.
- [07:55]
A
Yeah. And where I want to start with this is both of you occupy the comms director role for your respective agencies. And as you both know, these roles are not all that common amongst public defender agencies. If there are comms directors, they are very often just attorneys, not to. Not to not just say, like, just attorneys, but they are not people with Bob's background who were reporters. They are not people who have any experience working in media. They're just the person who, like, got assigned to do that job. And that's the job they do now. So to each of you, now that you have been, you know, for multiple years, been working in these agencies, let's establish up front, why should public defender agencies take the time, the budget, the staffing allocation to create an independent comms director who isn't just an attorney, but is somebody with the type of communications backgrounds that you both have to whoever wants to start?
- [08:54]
B
I mean, from my perspective, I think a lot of communication is language, right? And so lawyers are fluent to some degree in legalese, but they don't speak reporter. Right. They don't speak the. They don't understand necessarily the cadence of deadlines on background and off the record, deep background, all of that stuff. And they're not quite enmeshed in just sort of the cadence of a daily life of a reporter. And when you're not in it and you're not part of it, you don't necessarily understand the stresses therein. And also, what makes a good story? You know, I go around from office to office and I tell people everything is a story until it's not. And I see myself as the sort of agency reporter and, you know, have ideas bounced off me all the time. And I'll tell someone like, that sounds like a really interesting story for a legal trade publication. And then there's times where I'm like, that sounds wildly messed up. And that's something that I think the people that read and digest the news need to know. Because to me, to my ears, it sounds insane or it sounds newsworthy. And, you know, another thing I try to say is, look, you know, go to the bar this weekend. Go, you know, do whatever you normally do and tell a stranger what your week was like. The average person has no idea how insane this job is. The average person doesn't understand how the legal system that they pay for necessarily operates. So our job as part of this system, I do believe, is to tell that story in a meaningful way so that the people who turn on the tv, the radio, click their favorite news source, they can see what's actually going on in their courts. And they might not always agree with the mechanisms through which we operate. But I think it's important for people to be educated about the systems that they're paying for. And, you know, to circle back to your initial question, I Think there's value in that because I saw what it was like on the other side. Our general counsel is a badass. Her name is Lisa Hewitt. I love working with her, but when I used to have to put in calls to the public defender's office, I had to call the general counsel of a statewide agency in order to get feedback. And you know, God bless her, she did the job pretty well. But there's only so much a person can do, you know, over the course of a day. And so by freeing up that attorney, sort of in the hypothetical scenario that we led with here or general counsel or whatever, to kind of do what their actual stated job is and to give this to somebody else who has the training and acumen in order to do it, I think there's great value in that. Not to mention the fact that all of our so called adversaries, whether it be prosecutors, police, attorneys general, etc. Etc. Every single one of those agencies have at least one press person and they flood the zone with press releases every single day. And, and you know, if we are not equipped to participate in that public conversation in a meaningful way, well, then we're not being heard. And you know, I just, I think if you're a public defender and you're in court and you don't have access to the same tools as a prosecutor, well, then I'm not sure that that's doing the administration of justice, any kind of, it's giving a short, short thrift. So I think that not only should that be that way in court where we're on equal footing, but I think in the court of public opinion we should be on equal footing as well.
- [12:28]
C
Amen, Bob. Yeah, that was all on my list as well, so I'll take the answer a little more business minded maybe. So as far as spending resources as an agency trying to think of, okay, is this worth the, the investment into a communications person, particularly one who has a newspaper background? We communicate a little differently than attorneys. Right. Most attorneys are trained, and I'm not an attorney, are trained to really kind of dig down and get granular in cases and their eyes are focused down on a client and very dug in. Right. And a newspaper reporter or broadcast reporter, our communications person, is more able, I think, especially if they're given agency to do it, to kind of pull back and look at the broader themes, the way that it can connect with community. We're not as myopic and the myopathy is good when you're an attorney, but not necessarily when you're trying to communicate in different language. So I think communications people bring a great perspective to casework. Right. So you. I'm one where I'm working with an attorney, they might be thinking about the motions they're about to file. They might be thinking about the judge strategy and prosecutor strategy. And I'm asking these broader questions that sometimes they hadn't really put their mind to yet. So it's just a different mind that comes to the, to the game that is fruitful both in cases and, you know, communications people also help with other projects. I don't know what you do, Bob, but I help with internal projects as well. So it's not just client specific, case specific work that communications people do. You know, several communications people are working on legislative elements. They're working on internal projects as well. So a communications person isn't just coming to work with media. You know, most of us have tentacles out in other parts the of. Of the process as well. And I think that's really beneficial. What I'm finding is that a lot of our newer attorneys who are younger, but not always, we get a lot of more advanced career people returning as attorneys. But our younger and our newer attorneys are participating in a different PD culture than many of our leaders. Right. Our management and our executive is generally from the culture of pds, don't talk. So that when Bob and I used to call to try to reach a public defender, it was really difficult to reach anybody who would even say anything. Our younger, newer attorneys want to engage more. And if an agency or an organization has a communications director and values that that's a benefit to hiring as well. If someone's coming up and wants to join an agency and they see, wow, they prioritize communication, they want to participate in local narratives, that's a draw. And so that's an element that I can add to the list that, that Bob didn't hit. Because that's very real.
- [15:50]
A
Yeah. And. And to both of you here, since you have had this experience. I know, Maggie, the last time you were on the show, we talked a little bit about sort of the, the reporting cycle and how if you don't have a trusted ally, not even the ally, but just a trusted source at the PD office on a consistent basis, you eventually just stop calling, you stop reaching out to them. So for both of you, from your experience, talk to us about what it was like when you're trying to get these sources, when you're trying to reach out to people, what happened to the stories that you saw, either that you wrote or that you saw get put out when the public defenders were absent. What then became of stories they're framing, the Overton window that we then existed in because they were just absent in sort of the impacts of that to whoever wants to start us off.
- [16:35]
B
I mean, I can say that when I was a reporter, I was very cognizant to call the public defender's office all the time, because, I mean, I don't know if we can swear on this podcast, but you can't. I think press releases are bullshit, frankly. And I say that as a comms person, because whenever, as a reporter, I received a press release that signaled to me that me and 30 of my closest competitors all had the same piece of information. And so, you know, my editor would always say, make it hours, make it hours, make it ours. And the only way you can really do that is if you call the other players in the room. And what I noticed is when I had difficulty reaching the public defenders, it wasn't so much the story in that moment that took a hit. It was my credibility with the defense bar. Right? Because if I put my name on an article and it's very prosecutor first and, oh, you know, such and such was not able to comment or was not able to be reached, when I would reach out to a defense attorney, you know, they come preloaded with the predisposition that I'm the kind of person that just takes the police narrative first. So I think it hurt me as much as it hurt the story. So, you know, I think that reporters, good reporters, and believe me, there's plenty of lazy ones, and if they're listening, they know who they are. There are plenty of lazy reporters that if they just. They move a quote up from where it was in the press release and then slap their name on it, they're, you know, that's a hard day's work and they can move on. But good, hardworking reporters who are trying to get the story right, you know, it pisses them off when they can't get that extra quote, when they have to sort of lean in one direction. And if that is, that happens with enough regularity, you know, they stop calling or they'll call somebody else and have them opine on a case that's not theirs. And, you know, if you're playing the telephone game with a case, things get lost and things get misconstrued. So, you know, for me, when I was on the other side, if I couldn't get the PD's office, it impacted not only my story, but also my standing with People. So there's certainly great value in. In making sure that when the boomerang goes out, it comes back.
- [18:53]
C
That's. I like you talking about the honor of reporters. It's nice to hear that we get maligned, if not as much, maybe slightly less than public defenders do in public opinion. I'll give an example of like from now, not necessarily from when I was a reporter, but now, if this happens, most with broadcast, they'll get a press release from the cops. Heavy framing, right? They might not even call the person, you know, suspect. They'll just say, you know, man charged for murder. You know, this like really conviction, heavy language. The reporter, either from being lazy or busy or underpaid or all of the above, just takes that, makes that their headline. Doesn't call us, doesn't call me, doesn't trip to court, doesn't do any extra work, basically just regurgitating the press release on the website. This happens fairly frequently. I see it. I call because I try to call every time and say, hey, you didn't call us. This is our case. I'm here, this is unavailable. And they say, oh, well, I didn't know. And so then I say, okay, well, here's where your story went wrong. This is what needs to do. And then they will change their headline or update their story to a much more, much fairer headline, or they'll take out the really erroneous quote that they had in the story that they pulled from the press release. And that is just a small example to say that when we participate, we can literally change the words on the page. And I'm not saying that is like I have control of what the reporters do, but our participation gives them something else to work with. And without us participating, they just have what's given to them in the press release and their integrity. And that's a missed opportunity for us to engage. And that goes for case by case basis. That's client by client. That's that client story on the website and that 6pm news and their mug shot and all of that. And if we're not there, preferably on the front end of it, to give the reporter different language that they can choose from when they're crafting the frame for their story, then we kind of done our client a disservice. And yeah, there.
- [21:17]
A
There is a couple things that I've experienced just doing this show. You know, there are public defenders who get mad at me when I put out an episode, and then they're mad about how it comes out. But when I Reached out for comment. They didn't have any, they didn't have anything to say. They didn't want to participate. And I think public defenders have to move past this idea that they can opt in or out of these conversations. These conversations are happening whether you want them to or not. People are talking about our clients, they're talking about the legal system. And you can choose not to participate, but then you can't be angry about what's coming out. Because if you say I'm not going to, I'm not going to try and shape this, I'm not going to try and mold this, well, what do you expect to get? Because the prosecutors and the police are going to sure shape it and mold it. They got no problem playing. This isn't a thing we can just opt out of, unfortunately. And then I think it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. We have not participated for so long in the media that the media has a pro prosecution and police bent. But that's because we didn't participate. I have found that there are, of course, as you know, Bob, you alluded to, there's some lazy journalists, there's some pro police, pro cop journalists who are just going to, you know, put out the police reports, put out the statements and be a mouthpiece for them. That happened. But there's a lot of journalists who don't want to do that. But what choice do we give them when we say we don't want to do this stuff? So my next question for you is about really some of the training things you have done in your office because we're eventually going to build to how we're trying to scale this nationally and give people resources to think about this. But I want to talk a little bit about how your experience of trying to both maybe unlearn some of our more seasoned attorneys from their bad habits and to give newer attorneys the tools they need to actually engage with the media. Talk to us a little bit about what that has been like, some of the successes, the challenges, what are things that maybe we get as lawyers taught to do that we might need to unlearn when it comes to media relations to again, whoever wants to take it.
- [23:19]
C
This is one of my favorite topics because it's been the most fun within my department is helping change the culture of media friendliness and media engagement. As far as hands on training, we have implemented for all of our new incoming classes of attorneys and limited practitioners. We do a small session on media training, media skills and we talk about the ethics of it so that they cannot be afraid to release them from the fear of, you know, don't violate the ethics. Don't violate the ethics. So instead of just taking the hard line, we really try to explain their ethical boundaries so they can feel freer to move within them. And then we try to give a quick, you know, hour long how to talking about the vacuum that we just talked about. You know, if we don't engage, here's who does. And then we talk about actually how to get their phone number, understand their deadline that Bob was talking about, the machinery of how the news cycle works, what they want, how to make it easy for them, and most importantly, how to craft what we call creative. No comments. And I'm excited to hear what Bob has to say about how he does training there. I also really work to look for the attorneys who are excited to engage in media and find opportunities for them to engage in ways that challenge them and grow them. And then I engage in feedback with them. So we'll do an interview and I'll say, okay, listen, you could have done this better. Here's how you say this. And we pitch it as, as a career enhancement. Right? Like, do you want to add this to your resume as someone who knows how to do media interviews? Do you want this to be part of your skill? Your skills? So that's really fun. And then we take occasional. We organize newsroom tours of all of our newsrooms in this state. And I try to bring along some of the folks that I'm. I don't want to say grooming is probably the right word, but it sounds weird. So like bringing them along to really engage them and get them active.
- [25:29]
A
Yeah. And Bob, before you jump in there, there is just one note that I really want to harp on there because that is a question that I asked at the ABA Public Defender Summit when I was talking about media and public defense. I asked the room, who here has media training as a part of your onboarding, as your career development for like public defenders? And the people who raised their hands was your boss Anthony Benendetti and your boss Ben Bauer. And other than that, everybody's hands were down. And we ask ourselves, why are we bad? Why are we uncomfortable with the media? Well, imagine if I asked the room, hey, how many people in here have cross examination as a part of onboarding? Everybody's hand would go up and we would not wonder why. We're good at cross examining. It's because we train it. If we don't train it, we're never going to get good at it. So I really wanted to emphasize that point of just like having these things, these are choices, we can get better. It is not set in stone, Bob, please take it away from there.
- [26:27]
B
So I created a media handbook in which I outline the language of reporters. How we decide something's newsworthy, how people decide something is newsworthy. Sort of the channels that are available to people if, you know, they're approached for an interview or if they have something that they think is interesting. I also do a training for all new reporters in which I am, I'm a very hands on person. So like I'll go through the language and the definitions and all of that and then I just hand out hypothetical situations to groups of people and I just say, okay, here's the deal. X, Y and Z occurred. Your phone's about to ring and it's a reporter from the Boston Globe. And then I start the timer and I yell ring, ring. And it's me and I'm the reporter and the person who picks up has to deal with me. And you know, I put on any number of different characters, whether it be an incredibly aggressive old time reporter or someone who's lazy or someone who doesn't understand the story. And I let them sort of with the training they just took, deal with me in the way they should deal with a reporter. And you know, I tell everybody the phone number at the bottom of my email is my personal cell phone. Call me. I keep reporters hours, I will moot attorneys, I will moot their clients. And I tell them, you know, if, if they're a baseball fan, this works more than with others. But I say this is the weighted bat approach. I'm going to come in there and I'm going to be the most aggressive reporter you've ever dealt with. You know, and I'm going to ask you questions that are going to make you uncomfortable. I'm going to ask you things that you're not going to want to hear. And I'm going to push when you don't answer correctly so that when you are in the room with an actual reporter, you're going to be ready. And it has worked. So you know, that has been sort of not just training at the beginning, but it is like a continuous process. But for me I always say, you know, I'm nothing without input, right? Like I know how to read the dockets. I get the SJ Supreme Judicial Court decisions every day. I see if we're involved, but like if I don't know about that race based traffic stopped that occurred in the western part of the State, like it's. No one's going to hear about it, right? Like, if this is water cooler talk, only the water cooler gets wiser, right? Like, you need to talk to me about that. And then we go through the story and, you know, I know sort of the anatomy of a good story, right? The best case scenario is you have a. You have a case that illustrates a larger issue, right? And what every reporter wants is that narrative lead. That's just like, you know, Bob Smith was on his way home, it was raining, it was dark, yada, yada, yada. And then he got pulled over for nothing other than being a black man. In Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Across the state, there have been X amount of similar stops. And so when I show up, I say, look, I need the three legs of the stool, right? I need your case, I need the macro numbers and I need quotes from people who support the proposition that we're putting towards the press. And if we have those three legs, you can sit on that stool and we got a story. And it doesn't matter what the other voices say, because at that point, we own the top 50%. And that's all I ever want. Because everything after the top 50% of the story that ends up in the bird cage, nobody cares about that stuff. So there's the initial training, but it's an ongoing process. And I'll also say this, and I'm not sure if this would come up later, but I hesitate to say I train reporters because that's. As a reporter, I would hit myself. Like, that's an insane thing to say. But, like, most of the stories that I pitch don't have our names in it. I don't. I don't call reporters just when a CPCS story hits. Like when I see something out there and I'm like, oh, wow, this casino is getting sued. You know who would like this is that reporter over at Mass Live who covered that case of vine two months ago. Did a pretty damn good job. I'm just going to call him and say, hey, by the way, this thing's coming. I think it might be helpful for you if you make a couple calls on this. It's not my thing, but not for nothing, I think it's a story, and I do that every single day. All I do is just pitch and pitch and pitch. And I would say 20% of the things I pitch even involve us. Because what that does is it builds a rapport with you and the reporter so they know you're not just out there selling bullshit, right? And you know, I say this to my boss all the time. I'm not the guy who cries wolf either, right? When I don't think, if something's not, like, on fire and it's not. It's not ready to, you know, be under a byline, I'm not going to pitch it. If I show up, there's a wolf in the room. And that's how I try to build trust with the reporters that I deal with is, you know, I only come to them when I got something that's going to feed the. The weed thresher. And that's how I describe the reporters to our people. They wake up every single day and they got to feed the thresher. And if you're not feeding it, you're just in the way. And so whatever that wheat may be that day, if it's some civil suit doesn't involve you, or if it's something that does, as long as you're feeding it, they're going to come back. And so to me, that's sort of the outward training or relationship building or however you want to frame it is you got to pay the piper, man. Like, you have to get out there and you got to work with these people because this is a, you know, this is a bilateral relationship where, sure, I'm a good source, but, like, you need to be a good source to me because, remember two weeks ago when I told you about that case that was coming down and you had it alone and you were on page one, well, guess what? I got this thing and I need a solid or, you know, not for nothing, like, you got to give me a call if you're going to cover something that we're involved in. And reporters don't forget, even the lazy ones.
- [32:58]
C
There's an analogy to what Bob was just lending off there with was the same way that attorneys know their courtrooms, their judges. Here we call them TCAAs, the judge administrators, the people in the courtroom who take the paperwork. They know the landscape of their courtroom, and they know, okay, if I need this motion, this judge is gonna be more friendly for that, and if I need this argument, this judge is going to be more friendly for that. That's the same way that Bob and I operate with our media landscape. Like, I know this reporter over here is going to be really good at this, and I know this one owes me something, blah, blah, blah, you know, or this one has the skills to handle the nuance of this. It's. And if you don't have a communications person who has time in their schedule dedicated to understanding their landscape, their media landscape. You're going to miss out on those opportunities and you're also going to miss out on the, the subtler news work that happens that Bob was also referencing, which is the, when our names aren't on something, that's actually a bigger part of my job than the, you know, putting out a press release or getting a story, quoting my boss or something. Like, there's a lot of work that happens where I see some, something or an attorney or someone brings something to me that needs to get out and get some sunshine on it, but shouldn't have our name on it. And so that the relationships that I have built with my media landscape in the state allow me to do that in ways that are, they're ethical, but they're, they're more advanced. Right. Like, if you don't have someone who has that skill set, you're missing out on that opportunity. And that can be case based, it can be policy based, it can be community event based, you know, so it's, it's not just casework.
- [34:49]
A
Yeah. And it's, it's something that public offenders. I'm glad you brought up, like the court administrators, you know, whether it's bailiffs at the courthouse, sheriff's at the courthouse, like public defenders understand the benefit of having these relationships with people who aren't the judge or the prosecutor because, you know, the one day you kind of need a solid from a bailiff or like, hey, maybe clients not being cooperative today, hey, can you give me some time to go talk? Like there are. We're greasing the wheels for when we might need something done in the future by just having a relationship. This is basic, like 101, how to be an adult stuff. But when it comes to the media, I think we forget that, like, this is just a person.
- [35:26]
B
Right.
- [35:27]
A
This is just a human being with a job. And if you help them, they can help you and you build a relationship just like anything else. But we think because it's the media, it's just like this different beast that is so terrifying to so many of us. And I have theories as to why, you know, public defenders like to be in control of a situation. And the media is not a thing we're in control of. We can talk with the reporter, we can frame a story, but if the reporter doesn't do it the way we do, I think we feel that now we're participating in something that we don't control. And that frightens, I think a lot of public Defenders who were taught in cross examination, that's your witness, you control them. You make sure everything that comes out of their mouth, you know the answer to. In the media, we don't get that. And I think that that can feel uncomfortable for a lot of people to step into a space that is very much different than the one that we, I think, thrive the best in, which is like on a cross examination. Now, I want to. I want to ask, because you brought up something, Maggie, about these creative no comments. And I want to talk a little bit more about this because I think, Maggie, you alluded to it, and then there's the big elephant in the room, which is legal ethics. I think, right or wrong, that a lot of public defenders hide behind our ethical obligations as just the, oh, well, you know, ethics says we can't talk, so what can I do? I don't think that's accurate. I think it's a lack of creativity. So when you talk about those creative no comments, that's where I really want to hear some more from both of y'.
- [36:52]
B
All.
- [36:52]
A
But what does that mean? What does that look like? How do we participate even when maybe actually we can't ethically say the things we might want to say? What is a creative no comment. Talk to us about that.
- [37:02]
B
I mean, so I think there's a number of ways to do this. So, I mean, the A1 ethical issue that we run into is client acquiescence, right? Like, at the end of the day, if a client says, I do not want you to talk to the press, then it's, you know, we have to stand down. That's just, you know, that's where the prosecutors and the police just sort of have a leg up on us because they don't have a client. I mean, I guess the state is the client, but the state can acquiesce to really anything but assuming that the client is generally okay. But we're at a posture in the case where there's not really any. It's not a stand on the front steps and sort of yell at the moon about the case in chief, you know, if it's early. I mean, there are very artistic ways of saying, you know, my client is presumed innocence. And we are lucky as a society to operate under a constitution that allows us to be presumed innocent. And not only are we presumed innocent in that courtroom, but we should be presumed innocent in the pages of your newspaper. Right. Like that. Didn't say anything, but it's not. Couldn't be reached for comment. It wasn't declined to Comment. It was a, you know, get out the quill and we are going to go full constitution on this thing. And I mean the other way you do a creative non comment is rely on papers. Man, this is a paper business. You know, we filed dozens of motions and, and you know, within that motion, you know, there is, there are quotes that are better than anything anyone could come up with off the cuff. And so if, you know, I have, if I have an attorney that's like, hey, look, I'm just not in the posture to really say anything right now. I just say, what do you got from motions? Like, what have you filed? Give me some of the good stuff and I will give it to a reporter. Be like, hey, not for nothing, page three and seven. They spoke to me, so if I were you, I'd read the whole thing. But if I were me, I'm reading 3 and 7 and you know, a lot of times, you know, they, they decline the comment outside of their filings. And last week they filed this and quote, boom. Like there's the quote and it's as good as anything we could have said in front of a hot mic. So to me, you know, you can get as artistic as you want with sort of the presumption of innocence and all of that, but there's also, I mean, paper it over. You know, there's a million different ways that you can, you can construct a comment just basically, you know, out of the hard work that the attorneys are already doing. And nothing makes a reporter feel better than getting that email with an attachment that's just like, oh, this is just free money. Like I have this thing that nobody else has seen and nobody else has quoted and it's a public document. That's showtime. Now I have my story and I don't have to go back and read through my notes from that, you know, 10 minute interview. I just did great. So, you know, I think there's a number of ways to do it. I think that no comment is, to me, that's a four letter word. There's no such thing as a no comment. There's always a comment, right? And if that person's not comfortable and ready to do it and the training didn't stick, or they're just, they still fear reporters. Let me do it. I'll sit there and I'll sell and put the quote under my name, I don't care. And we'll do it that way. But to me, if I see a no comment, you better believe you're getting a call from me the next Day, because I don't know what happened there, but that's not how we do business around here in Massachusetts.
- [40:50]
C
Yeah, why am I on? Why am I here if we're doing that? Like, one of the things about having a comms person is that you can. And I engage in this quite frequently. Reporter will call the attorney directly. The attorney reaches out to me, like, oh my gosh, what do I do? And so we have this like back and forth and I try to make it as swift as possible because I know our attorneys are slammed. And so I will kind of what Bob was saying, I will craft something for them and say, what about this? And then I'll throw it at them. And it's, it's the creative no comment land. Like, you know, we're going to be looking at these allegations. We're going to be waiting for the state to bring whatever evidence they can manage to put together. You know, kind of these like slightly little sassy comments if we can get it. And then I'll throw it out at the attorney and just to remind them, like, you don't have to summarize your pleadings in a sentence for media. And that's where the kind of myopic attorney mind gets stuck, I think, where it's like, okay, the media wants a comment. I have to write. You don't have to write emotion. You don't have to write a big old thing. You know, just take a step back, which is where the comms brain comes in to just pull back. Give me something constitutional. Give me something about fairness. Give me something about taking our time and letting the court process work. There's a whole world of ways that we can engage in comment that show that we're there. And here's why. I think a couple of thoughts about engaging in stories. Even when we don't have something super substantial to say, I think it most often makes a client feel good to know that their attorney is fighting for them out in the public too. There are times when we have clients who are like, I don't want to talk to the media at all ever. And that we respect that 1000%. It so helps the client feel fought for. It reminds the public and readers, even if it's not really explicit, that we exist, we're the public defender, we're here, we're part of your government services. And that then leads to another realm of participating in media narratives, is that we actually are here and we do need funding. You know, if we're totally absent from stories, if we're not, if we're invisible in the corner. We're not engaging. It's a little easier to ignore, as in other places as well. And, you know, is that the deal breaker in us getting more money in our budget? No. But does it help A little bit? Yes. I do think that just an awareness that we're here makes a difference.
- [43:24]
A
Yeah. And I'll just look at and see what's going on in, like, California. They've had a big, you know, I think both of your offices participated in, like, wearing black a couple weeks back in support of Mano Raju and what he's dealing with, San Francisco. But those. The reason why when I looked in San Francisco, I saw other organizations, other entities, like, also coming to bat for that. That's because Mano, you know, as an elected official, he has some benefit here that other public defenders might not have. But he's out in the community. People know who Mano Raju is. Like, he is not some nameless, faceless. The public defender out there in the ether that we don't know and see and care about. He is Mano Raju, the public defender of San Francisco. And you could see him, you could touch him, you can talk to him. You know, he is present. And it is so much harder to not care about people when you know, it's just a. It's just a 101. When it's the government, oh, well, we don't trust it. But when it's the cop who lives down the street next to you and you see him around the neighborhood, all of a sudden, maybe he's not the government. And that's the benefit that cops and prosecutors have had for decades. They have been able to be active in the community sufficient that a country that doesn't trust the government, that they'll trust them, the literal embodiment of the government. And that's because they're present, that's because they're there. People don't see cop and prosecutor and think government. They think the person down the road who lives right next to me, who I see at parent teacher conferences, who. Who do these little things. And public defenders for a long time have been absent from all of that. The last thing that I have from you is about sort of Maggie, something you alluded to. I think when it comes to reporting cycles, there is always a time, right? We're on a deadline. We have a couple hours. There's. And I think a lot of public defenders get paralyzed because they really struggle to get the perfect message out in the time crunch. And because they can't Deliver a perfect message, they deliver no message. And I want to talk about how when you are going through how we're going to communicate, how you balance time constraints versus messaging and what you think about, like, hey, getting out an 80% good message, that doesn't hurt us. That's better than getting nothing out because we were trying to be perfect. Talk to us about that balance and how y' all strike it and how you help attorneys learn to engage in an environment where there is a bigger time constraint and we might have to get not the perfect thing out that we might want.
- [45:48]
C
So this happens regularly. And this is a skill that I kind of work on softly when I'm working with attorneys. You know, I'll have a, you know, reporter calls. It's 2pm Their deadline's 5 or 5:30, and the attorney just got back from afternoon court and we've got a half an hour or 40 minutes to get some sort of comment out. They said, well, I'll just, I'll think something up and I'll get it to you tomorrow. Well, that doesn't work. Right. Like, if you, like you said at the very beginning, Hunter, like, this story's happening with or without us. This is going forward. I can't pause this story. If you want to participate in it, we need to get something out in the next half hour. And then I kick in, I find myself more often taking the lead on it and just throwing something out for them to chew on. And it usually gets changed a hundred percent, but it starts the ball rolling right. Like, here's this. What do you think about this? No, I hate that. I need this, this and this. And then I'm the one that ends up oftentimes crunching it together and giving it back to them. And they direct it right. Like they lead the way through that. So it takes active participation. Again, another reason to have a comms person who doesn't have an ego in the game and can just be like, oh, you hated what I said. That's fine, you know, just keep going. So there's that and then just reminding them, let's just get something that lets them know we're here and lets our client know that we're here as well. And reminding them of the benefit of that. And in the land of no comment zone, it's much easier to do that creative no comment zone. It's much easier to do that because we're not working in the substantial details. Once we get into the meat of a case, it becomes a little more substantial and we have to Take more time. And we just do, we do, we do it. And both Bob and I, I'm sure, are really good at working really quickly on a deadline. So that's kind of fun for me. I like that little last minute rush of the time crunch.
- [47:39]
B
Yeah, I mean, for, for my purposes, I, you know, and I'm sure Maggie does the same. I mean, I interview the reporter, right? I'm like, were you there right Today was the initial appearance. Were you in the, were you in the room? Or are you, is the editor dropping this on your lap? Because you're the guy that comes in at 11:30 and if you were in the room, are you quoting us right now based on what was said in court? I wasn't there today, so did my guy say anything interesting that is quotable right now? Because you know, that obviously is going to dictate how I participate in this. And if they say yes and then I try to sort of figure it out from there and then, you know, if not, then I go to my attorney and I send them a quote that I write and I go, hey you. I got approached by the Boston Globe. I give them a tighter deadline than the reporter gives me. I say, they need this in 20 minutes. We good with this? And they are like, and you know, they'll make their edits or whatever they want to do or their ad subtract whatever it might be and then they get it back to me and then I just wait, I just sit on it. And if the if deadline is 5 o', clock, I send it at 4:58. Because what I don't want to deal with is a second round of questions based on my comment that requires me to go back to the attorney, ask, you know, follow up questions if we don't answer, turn into a subsequent decline to comment on X. But I do know that if the editor's hands are on that reporter's chair and then my comment comes in two minutes before that story's due, not only can they say we didn't comment, they got to go with what we sent them. And there's no boomerang effect. They're not coming back to me with another question. And so I guess at that point I have been not all the way truthful about deadlines with my people and I've not been all the way truthful about when I got my statement to the reporter. But we're in the paper and there's no second or third round around the track with me about that stuff because I know there's nothing worse than sitting there waiting for a statement. I also know there's nothing better than getting it as the fire is getting hot on your feet. So that's how I participate in this whole situation is just sort of truncating whatever deadline there may be by two hours at least. I say their deadline is yesterday. We got to get this out the door right now. And do you have any feelings on this? If the answer is if your gut tells you this is a bad idea, we moonwalk away and we live to see another day. But here's what we got and we just sort of move forward that way. And one of the negatives or one of the positives, I should say about all of these newspapers being owned by sort of one or three companies is these companies, if you look carefully on their websites, they have their ethical obligations under the Society of Professional Journalists. And in those, their sort of credo, it will say we will update stories when new information is available or we will do X, Y and Z. And so I will just pull that language off of their website and six months later and we get a not guilty on that case that they covered, never came back to. I'll say, hey, I got a material update. As per your own ethical rules, I would like a story about this not guilty. And so I will just use their own language against them because they just grab boilerplate society professional journalist language and put it on their website copy paste. Put in my email. I'll link to it and say I would like an update, please and thank you.
- [51:40]
C
How does that work, Bob? Are you get. Are you getting stories out of that?
- [51:44]
B
I would say I have a higher than my batting average would be very good in professional baseball. I would say so I'm over.300 on that. But it certainly gets a look because then that has to go to the editor, right? I mean, I'm quoting your publisher right now. So it works. Does it work every time? No, but it works enough that I won't stop doing it.
- [52:12]
A
All of this is just like such an emphasis of the theme of this is like everything you're saying. This is why you need somebody who knows this shit in your office. Because none of these things are intuitive to me, right? None of these things just like, oh yeah, I should be doing this, this, that, and this is a way to, to work with this because you both understand the inner workings of this in such a manner that you know where the pressure points can be and you know where you can do stuff that that isn't also going to ruffle any feathers, which I think is important, you know where the lines are and you know how to go right up against them and then operate within that norm. I think that's very important. And if you've never been a, a journalist, a reporter, if you have no comms training, there's no way you could probably intuit this stuff without a lot of trial and errors along the way. And you might end up learning some bad traits if you don't have this kind of person. So the last place where I want to end with, because this is really what the kind of the call to action for everybody is. I know that both of you have been working with NAPD trying to do trainings to try and get more of a comms, you know, type trainings that we see this with investigators, we see with social workers, with paralegals and to really set up like, hey, we also do this stuff for communications professionals in public defense. Tell us what that has been like, tell us what the national landscape is like and tell us how we can build more of these things so we can get more communications professionals throughout public defense. Again, whoever wants to take it, I think.
- [53:37]
C
Well, first off, the communications pool has been growing over the last six years, which is when I started, just about the same time as Bob probably. There's more and more folks and I'm having more folks reaching out to me individually. And the recent NAPD and LEDA conferences, the emphasis on communication represents an organic growth as kind of the older guard starts to recognize the value of this. There's an organic movement and then the kind of institutionalized agency of trainings and trying to bring people together to unify and share messages and share skills is great. It just takes participation. And when in a field where we're all really busy, that's really challenging. I think one of the keys to spreading the communications practice is convincing chief public defenders and executive public defenders about the benefit of it. And I think that comes best from other chief and executive public defenders. I mean, Bob and I can say all day long, look like this is, look at all the headlines I got, or look at all the stories I got, or look at all the calls I took. But unless the chiefs and the executives can say like this is helping us in this way, in this way, you know, if you can be like, oh, I got a 10% budget increase because I have a comms person would be amazing, right? But you know, some administrative and business oriented concepts I think are going to convince folks more that this is a beneficial role to have on board.
- [55:12]
B
So we did a virtual napd event two months ago. And the panel that I had the privilege of leading was. I brought three reporters, and it was me just talking to them about what they want and what they're looking for and what's beneficial to them as a mechanism to kind of demystify who reporters are. Right. Because at the end of the day, I don't think public defenders and reporters are actually that much different. I think they're both very aggressive professionals that care dearly about getting it right. And at the end of the day, what they want to do is move the ball of society forward at least an inch. Right? Like that's what good reporters and good public defenders have. That they have a healthy skepticism of power and to, you know, to a degree that sometimes negative within the office and both newsrooms and otherwise. But that skept. That healthy skepticism is what makes them similar as well. I think the larger issue that I see is, you know, I recognize that I come from a place of immense privilege to be at the public defender's office in Massachusetts. We have a robust media environment. We have. We are fairly well funded, you know, compared to our colleagues across the country. We are statewide. That is not just. It's not cookie cutter, right? I mean, there are public defender agencies that cover individual cities, that cover counties. And, you know, the funding does not always match what the. What it should be. And so, you know, I recognize that not everyone is going to be as lucky as we are here in Massachusetts. That's just not. It's not realistic. And I also recognize that some of these places exist in news deserts. I mean, if you are operating in certain parts of the Midwest, there may only be a handful of newspapers and radio stations within 100 miles. I am 300 yards away from the biggest media organization in Massachusetts right now. So that's the thing that we have to overcome. It's not necessarily reluctance as much as it used to be, because I think people do see the net benefit of people like myself and Maggie and others. I think the issue is that it's not one size fits all. I think that there's a lot of public defender agencies that are just trying to get to the next day that are woefully underfunded, that the Sixth Amendment is more of a sort of abstract idea than anything in practice in those jurisdictions. And that sucks. And it's not good for the people in those areas, and it's not good for the public defenders, and it's not good for the legal system writ large. So overcoming that necessary barrier, I mean, I don't know how we do that, that's sort of like an existential societal question that we have to ask ourselves. But getting out there and being public about the things that we do in a meaningful way that tells the people that pay for us that they are getting something, they are getting a bang for their buck, that when that Supreme Court in whatever jurisdiction decision comes down, that makes it illegal for police to do X, Y and Z, that that doesn't just apply to the poorest of the poor, it applies to your neighbor as much as it does to you. That's showbiz. Like, that's how you get. Like, you move them, you move the ball forward. And yes, having comms person helps. And yes, I wish every single PD office could afford one, but it's tough. It's tough out there. And I recognize there's no clear answer. And I mean, even for the police, right? And you know, traditionally every police department had a comms person, et cetera, et cetera. That stuff is getting consolidated, at least around here. I mean, we have firms that will they do comms work for a menagerie of police departments that, you know, they're in towns of 3,000 people. It doesn't make sense to them to have somebody with a salary and benefits and all of that and a pension doing comms work. So is that an answer? Is it possible that there could be sort of a private sector response to this? Maybe. But I do think that what you want is somebody who's ingrained in the fabric of your agency, who knows the people who are out there, who gives a shit about what you do and how you do it, and can speak fluently in two different languages, that of the press and that of your mission. And if you can find somebody that can do that, I think there's not like a dollars and cents figure you can put on it. But I guarantee you, you will see the fruits of that labor when you pick up the paper in the morning.
- [59:59]
A
Yeah. And the only thing I'll add, because I think that's an excellent place to end it is what you just described is that this has to be a priority. However we decide to go about it right, it's going to look different for other people. But in earlier episodes, we talked to people who would bring in sort of IT professionals and data professionals so that we could then consolidate the data to go to the legislature and make our our pitches with actual data. Those public defenders, the leaders who did that, they had to make a choice to say, you know what? We are going to prioritize data collection. And for that, I don't need a lawyer. I need something else. And it really comes down to leaders prioritizing however they choose to prioritize it, whether it's an FTE or some of the stuff that you just mentioned there, Bob. But prioritizing communication has to be as ingrained as prioritizing social work. Paralegals, investigators, all of the other people that we know are essential to public defense. Thank you both so much for joining me today. Where can people contact you? Learn more, read more. If they got questions, where can they send them to?
- [61:04]
C
I'm glad you asked that because one of the things that I know Bob and I both do is we make ourselves available for public defenders across the country to contact and say, how do I do this? What do I do? Give me the skills. I am always available for that. You can find my contact information on our website. So nmlopd us. That's our website. Or just Google New Mexico Public Defenders. And there's a media tab up top to try to make it accessible. So we're up there. You can find me there. Please reach out. I'm happy to consult your agency, your department and give you some ideas.
- [61:40]
B
Yeah, so we are in a posture where we're kind of between websites. Like right now we kind of have Schrodinger's website. And so hopefully within the next three or four weeks we're in a more comfortable place. But you can reach me at R as in Robert McGovern at publiccouncil.net always happy to chat. And yeah, if you don't reach me there, go on our website. You can find me and I'm always happy to chat.
- [62:08]
A
Thanks again everybody for tuning in today. If you like today's episode and you're liking the show, please remember to like subscribe, leave a rating, leave a review and share with anyone who you might think is interested in learning more about our rotten criminal legal system. If you would like to contact me with any questions, concerns, feedback or potential guest recommendations, you can go to publicdefenselessmail.com and shoot me an email. You can also find more about the show at publicdefenseless.com or on Instagram at Public Defenseless Podcast or on twitter @p.DefenselessPod. as always folks, thank you again for your support. If you have have the means to do so, it would be great if you could go down to the Show Notes, go to Patreon and subscribe for as little as $5 a month where you can get access to the show a day early and the video versions of the show. Again, thank you all so much for the support and hope to see you soon.