On the Record: Only the Director

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration apparently has a new policy: nobody but its director, Nicole R. Nason, is allowed to speak to reporters on the record. Christopher Jensen, a contributer to the New York Times' "Wheels" blog, isn't happy about it.

This is an increasing phenomenon in federal agencies, and can't tell whether it's due to:

• Bush administration message control.
• Paranoia about negative or inaccurate media coverage (the latter being less rare than I'd like to admit).
• Egotism on the part of political appointees who want to see only their own names in the press.
• Some combination of all of the above.

In any case, from where I sit I see a lot of instances where an agency's efforts to get out accurate information about its operations are genuinely hurt by allowing only the person at the top to talk on the record. And whose interest does that serve?