FEMA's Unique Language: Softness and Strength

I want to talk a little bit about the power of words and ideas.

If you read through the FEMA materials that we were presented with throughout the last two weeks of training, nowhere in them will you find the word ‘bad’. It has simply gone away, as though it never existed. ‘Wrong’, ‘false’, ‘poor’ and other such terms have met a similar end, replaced by ‘negative’, ‘confusion’ and ‘learning opportunity’. If curses are the fine edge of a knife, FEMA’s language is the plastic toy saw: deliberately blunted, gentle, impossible to harm anyone with.

Chewing this peculiarity over in my head for the past two weeks, I was initially surprised at its presence in FEMA. “These people deal with disasters,” I thought. “I would have expected their language to be blunt, direct, to the point: these are people who deal with some of the most traumatic events (there I am, doing it too) a person can suffer in this country. Wouldn’t they exercise brevity, practicality and toughness in their language?” In this line of thinking, I wasn’t just barking up the wrong tree. I wasn’t even in the right forest.

It turns out, of course, that FEMA takes an essentially opposite approach to the one I described. Instead of matching the brutality of a disaster head-on, FEMA seeks to blunt its edges. They’re taking these massive, desperate, chaotic things and sanitizing them, sanding them down, restoring order with bureaucracy and sanity. I should have seen it sooner. It’s right there in the name: Federal Emergency Management Agency. Their entire job is to take the devastated communities that these huge, scary, horrible events leave behind and get the people living in them back to normal. Of course their language would tend towards the harmless and bureaucratic; that’s the entire point! Normalizing the event is how FEMA helps places recover, and their language reflects that mission.

In that sense, FEMA stands as one example of the power of language and how it can evoke the culture of an organization. FEMA has adopted a very specific mission and mindset, and their softening of their language is a by-product and, probably, a driver of that effect. Here, language is strong and meaningful and full of information, however little one might glean from individual words or acronyms. (It’s a peculiarity of acronyms that they encompass so much meaning within their component words, but the acronym itself is often meaningless; what’s a NPSC or a JFO but alphabet soup?) The whole approach, language-wise, is heavier with significance than all the individual words that go into it.

Now we are officially part of that mission, speakers of a goosedown language in a world of rubble. FEMA Corps officially graduated from FEMA training this afternoon. Starting tomorrow morning, we’ll all fly off in different directions for our first spikes/disaster deployments (depending on the lingo). My team and two others will go on station in Atlanta, GA. Two teams are heading back to Vicksburg, and three are apparently going to Clinton, Mississippi; others are headed for Harrisburg, PA or Richmond, Virginia or points unknown (to me). I can’t speak to everyone’s mission, but in the present absence of disasters in Atlanta, we will be working in FEMA’s administrative section as, it seems, public relations and data folk. Community Relations is typically the face of FEMA, but this time around, we will be part of its voice.

FEMA’s style, obviously, is not my own. I don’t shy away from bluntness and I dislike the twisting, often torturous roads that politically correct language inevitably must traverse. But my central issue with sterilized language—that words are less important than the concepts they get across—can also be turned into a personal challenge. As we’ve learned over the past few days, FEMA’s policies and procedures and acronyms and euphemisms can seem labyrinthine to the uninitiated. It is the job of Community Relations to relate to the community, to parcel out and receive information in an understandable way. We will act as translators, fluent in both Bureaucratic and Ordinary English. And although we’re not going to be going door-to-door, at least not yet, this is still an opportunity to get the word out about FEMA’s mission. There’s a balance to be struck between jargon and information, and part of my job will be wielding concepts, words and acronyms to do so. I can't wait to get started.

Canvassing Then and Now: The Life of a Community Relations Specialist

During this past summer, I worked as a canvasser—very briefly—for two different organizations: Wisconsin’s Public Interest Research Group and Obama for America. Both jobs had me going door-to-door in targeted neighborhoods, talking to all manner of ordinary citizens and trying to either pry money out of them (as with PIRG) or getting them to register to vote if they had not already done so (OFA). I mention this because as a Community Relations Specialist, I’m going to be doing a lot of going door-to-door in disaster zones and listening to the survivors. My job—and the job of the other half-dozen teams of CR specialists in the Vicksburg class—is to assess, inform and report, to listen and hear and understand.

They say that the CR specialist is the face of FEMA, but I think a more appropriate analogy (I’m my team’s designated analogy guy, by the way) would be a capillary. There are lots and lots of us and, individually, we are insignificant in the sweeping chaos of a disaster zone. But we collect information and feed it up the FEMA pipeline, as it joins other information from other CR specialists and is compiled into reports (veins), which eventually find their way to the heart (Joint Field Office). We are the rock upon which disaster policy is built; our reports dictate, in part, FEMA’s response. That’s a hell of a responsibility, especially for young people like FEMA Corps Members, although we will be with a mentor (at least initially).

And it is not easy work. Our instructors have told us, or at least hinted from time to time, that we should prepare for the worst when we go to knock on doors. I mean, come on, it’s a disaster! It’s going to bring out some ugliness in people, people looking for somebody to blame or people struggling not to break down completely. We have to help all of them, point them in the right direction and let them know how they can get registered for aid. When I was canvassing, I got plenty of people who were terse or rude or simply didn’t want to talk, and that can wear on you. It wore on me. FEMA Corps won’t have to raise money the way I did, so that takes some of the pressure off, but we’ll still have to slough off negative reactions like so much angry snakeskin.

CR specialists live in tough conditions, too. The word from the Powers That Be is that we’ll hopefully be deployed right after disasters strike, so good luck finding regular lodging. With a sort of grim resignation, we (or maybe that grim bit’s just me) are prepared to sleep in waterlogged tents, eat crappy food and work twelve-hour days pounding the pavement, because the accommodations and accessories are secondary: you go where you go and do what you must, which is what we’re all here to do.

And I think that’s the key, the “what we’re all here to do”. Here’s the thing: I quit my first canvassing job after a week because I was flat miserable. The cause I was working for really didn’t need the money I was raising, and I just didn’t buy into the message they were sending. You try walking the streets for hours at a time, knocking on a door and trying to sell perfect strangers on something you don’t believe in. Maybe some people can canvass without buying into what they’re selling, but I needed something that I could personally get behind.

 And that’s what disaster relief brings, you know? I know I harp on this theme, probably more than I should, but we’re all here to do good works. We’ve got that motivation, and after six solid weeks of training, we’ve got the hunger to get out into the world and start doing what we all came here to do. That’s how we’re gonna weather the lousy parts of this gig, because the motivation is there to do what we must… and because the good times, or so I hear, are so overwhelmingly satisfying. Each night, I will be able to crawl into my government-issued sleeping bag and drift off to sleep saying “I helped an old lady get registered for FEMA assistance today,” or “I reported some downed power lines in a community this afternoon and got repair crews out to fix it before someone got electrocuted,” or “I helped a dozen newly homeless people find someplace where they could get food and shelter”. We’ve got all kinds of belief or nonbelief systems in this Corps, but I think everyone would agree that we’re doing righteous work. And unlike a lot of people in the Corps, we are privileged to do it face-to-face with the people who need help. I think that is a great gift that we’ve been given.

Anniston Tidbits, Part II: IA and CR Specialist Training

Caveat: This is Individual Assistance training only—Community Relations-specific training will come later in the week—but the two get cross-trained, so IA/CR people will need to know both areas.

Caveat Emptor: All things in this blog come with the tag “As best I understand it”, because this is confusing. Also, all of this info comes out of Gigantic Binder No. 2, “Applicant Services Program Specialist Student Manuel”. Don’t sue me.

-I went over the disaster declaration process in yesterday's post, but just in case, here it is again: disaster happens locally, local authority kicks it up to the state level, who kicks it up to FEMA, who kicks it to the President, who signs a disaster declaration that allows FEMA to help with the disaster.

-SEQUENCE OF DELIVERY. This is HUGE. It’s a seven-step process that each disaster survivor goes through after registering with FEMA and letting us know what they need. It is the foundation of what IA Specialists do. Here it is in steps.

1. The applicant goes to the volunteer agencies that show up after a disaster to get their basic emergency needs met, if any. Think food, clothing, shelter, emergency medical needs.

2. After that, they go to the insurance companies and get what they’re due. This would be homeowners’ insurance, the National Flood Insurance Program, whatever’s applicable. Straight quote from the binder: “FEMA cannot provide assistance until other forms of assistance, such as insurance, have been exhausted.”

3. If your insurance doesn’t cover everything, you go to FEMA Housing Assistance (HA). They’ll inspect your home for damages and award you money for repairs to or replacement of your home (the latter if it was condemned or damaged beyond repair). If your home is in a ridiculously remote location where construction companies aren’t, like the Alaskan hinterlands, they will actually build you a new house—but only in those rare circumstances. The watchwords are “safe, sanitary, functional”: they’ll give you funding to make your home those, but won’t pay for luxuries.

4. That money, however, is only for housing. Next is FEMA/State Other Needs Assistance, inevitably called ONA (pronounced Oh-nuh). This step takes care of medical, dental and funeral expenses, and a few others.

5. Here’s another confusing one. The Small Business Administration (SBA) gives low-interest loans to people for a) home and personal property, b) business physical loss or c) economic injury. That… actually was fairly straightforward. See why blogs like this are a good resource?

6. If they get the SBA loan, fantastic, they’re good. If they don’t, it’s time for another round of FEMA/State ONA assistance! This time it’s for expenses related to personal property, moving and storage of items (to get away from floodwaters, say), transportation and so forth.

7. If after all that they still have unmet needs, the applicant is kicked back to voluntary agencies who’ll help ‘em out.

That’s the end of the Sequence, but there are yet more agencies (and acronyms) who’re available to help out disaster survivors. Disaster Unemployment Assistance (DUA) supplements but doesn’t supplant regular unemployment. The latter covers people at normal jobs, while the former covers the self-employed or farm workers (or whoever) that were rendered unable to work by the disaster. The Crisis Counseling Program (CCP, not to be confused with CCCP, the defunct Communist superpower) is what it sounds like: disaster survivors’ counseling. Disaster Legal Services (DLS) are free legal services for survivors, and Disaster Case Management (DCM) is to help people navigate their way through the last 400 words, because Lord knows I would need that.

-Privacy Act: This one is simple. Personal information that you take in is private. If you misuse it or let it get stolen, the FBI will hunt you down and bite your nose off. #incentive

-Oh, I forgot this: Both the HA and ONA are under the umbrella of the IHP (Individual and Households Program). The maximum dollar amount an applicant can get is $31,400 for all programs under that umbrella; they could get X dollars to fix their house and Y for rental expenses, but it all has to stay under the $31,400 ceiling. The amount changes with the fiscal year. How and why it does that is dark magic beyond our mortal ken; do not inquire, lest it claim your life. 

-Duties of an IA specialist: Answer questions about disaster recovery, about letters from FEMA, about housing assistance and rental resources (places that disaster survivors can rent. I speak bureaucrat), complete forms, talk to the JFO or register people with FEMA (more like tell them how to register).

-About the DRC: The Disaster Recovery Center is supposed to be a “one-stop shop” for everything. IA specialists work there. The SBA is there. Voluntary agencies will be there. The idea is that everything will get taken care of in one swell foop. 

-IMPORTANT WARNING THING, NOTICE THIS: It is not CR’s place, when we’re out in the field, to hint or lead people to expect that they’ll be eligible for whatever kind of benefits. Even if their house has been totally flattened, it’s possible that they won’t get money to repair/replace it. Maybe it’s their vacation home or something and isn’t eligible. We don’t know. But anything we say could create false expectations, so don’t. You can say “You may be eligible for YYZ”, but not “You will (or should) be eligible for ABQ”.

Other big thing to remember in general, as a guiding principle: FEMA pays for stuff when there’s no other source. HA only kicks in when insurance doesn’t work; ONA only kicks in after the SBA has denied a loan. (The second time ONA appears in the chain, anyway; there really should be a different acronym for that.)

This is a basic overview. There is a lot of other stuff and a lot of other details that you have to know, but this should be a decent foundation for the rest of the class. Tips: don’t let the acronyms get you down, use your common sense and take lots of notes.

Tidbits From FEMA Week I: You Thought Americorps Loved Its Acronyms...

In keeping with the "Keep Vinton informed about the goings-on at the CDP!" theme, I'm going to post a brief (read: less than 1,200 words) summary of what we did last week. That was "Intro to FEMA, all specialist positions". This week is more like "FEMA 200: Advanced Specialist Training". 
Vintoners: posts about the general feel of the training and a general overview of the place are already up. 

-FEMA's motto is the following: "Protect communities by coordinating and integrating all activities necessary to build, sustain, and improve the capability to mitigate against, prepare for, respond to and recover from threatened or actual natural disasters, acts of terrorism, or other man-made disasters." It may be a good idea to memorize this; apparently the FEMA administrator, Craig Fugate, is in the not-at-all-unsettling habit of walking around disaster sites and randomly asking FEMA employees to recite said Motto at inopportune moments.

-You've probably heard the Stafford Act mentioned in the Specialist Position descriptions. That is the legal authority for FEMA to do its thing. It lays out the procedure for how FEMA gets involved in a disaster response, which is as follows: Disaster happens. Local government tries to deal with it, realizes it's too big of a disaster, calls in state government. State government does what it can with state resources, realizes it's too big of a disaster, formally requests federal aid. FEMA reviews the request and kicks it up to the President, who says yes or no. If he says yes, then FEMA swings into action. Key point: FEMA cannot help out with a disaster if the state doesn't say so. And once FEMA is called in, they don't "take over" the disaster. Their role is to help the state and get resources to the state.

-Going off that, FEMA has three main programs: individual assistance (IA), public assistance (PA) and hazard mitigation (AKA "mitigation grants"). IA is about helping individuals and households. PA is about fixing/rebuilding public infrastructure (roads, bridges, schools, etc). Hazard mitigation is about making the community better able to resist the next disaster, e.g. making buildings earthquake-proof in an earthquake zone. All three of those involve doling out rather substantial amounts of money to the relevant parties (grants or loans to individuals/households for IA, grants to the state for PA and hazard mitigation). I'll go into much greater detail on IA in a day or two, because that's what I myself am learning about right now. PA people, you'll have to just wait 'till you get here.

-The Whole Community concept: I wrote about this a little while back. Whole Community is basically about engaging everyone in a disaster-hit community (henceforth "community"). It's about engaging everyone who wants to help in the disaster recovery effort. That means not just FEMA, but state and local governments, faith-based charity organizations, nonprofits, businesses, families, people. And it's also about including everybody in a given community, leaving nobody out or behind. There's a whole list in the binder you'll get of people who have a "social vulnerability"--the poor, the elderly, the disabled, non-English speakers, children, people with pets (that's a real problem if people won't leave a flooding home without their dog, for example)--who all have to be included/taken into account when you're responding to a disaster. 

-JFOs and DRCs: If you're like me, you heard the acronyms on the NCCC campus but don't know quite what they mean. A JFO is a Joint Field Office. There's only one per disaster and it's the nerve center of the entire disaster response. The Federal Coordinating Officer, a.k.a. Your Lord and Master, works there. DRCs are Disaster Recovery Centers. There will be at least one (probably) in each county that's been declared an disaster area and eligible for IA. IA people will work there. If FEMA were a video-game enemy, DRCs would be level bosses and the JFO would be the final showdown with Bowser.

-Memorize this number: 1-800-621-3362. That's the FEMA helpline (3362 = FEMA). One way for people to register at the DRCs is for them to call that number, so remember it. 

-They give you a chapter on the FEMA organizational structure, most of which will be way over your head and mine. Basics: the FCO, the State Coordinating Officer (SCO) and various other luminaries are in charge: that's the Unified Coordination Group (UCG). Everyone else, which includes External Affairs, Operations, Planning, Logistics and Finance/Administration (the five main thingees) takes their orders from the UCG. The various IA people, the VALs, the Mass Care people and the PA people are all in Operations. Community Relations are under External Affairs. The Logistics people are obviously in Logistics. We're all still FEMA Corps, but that's where everyone fits in the FEMA hierarchy. (There'll be charts. Again, you'll get boatloads of detail at the CDP; these are basics.)

-One of CR's main missions is Assess, Inform, Report (AIR). This is the "boots on the ground" part of CR that I've mentioned in the past. This is going in right after the disaster and reporting back to the higher-ups. We're also the face of FEMA out in the community, so we have to represent the organization well. 

-Unit 8, "Working the Media", inspired a post all its own. They basically tell you to "stay in your lane" and only talk about the things you know about. This will be frustrating. We gotta deal with it. 

That's everything in my first gigantic binder. The second gigantic binder will be up soon!

(Mostly) Everything You Want to Know About the Center for Domestic Preparedness

It occurred to me this morning that I’ve been writing a few things about the CDP and its programs, but not really giving people a comprehensive idea of what to expect at the CDP. And since people from Vinton have apparently been reading this blog (thank you, Vinton campus!), I feel like giving an account of what to expect here. Here goes.

Swag. FEMA will give you a LOT of stuff. In the first few days of being here, we all got a Blackberry and a bunch of accessories, a laptop (complete with indestructible case) and a RSD token that allows you to connect securely to the Internet. I would still advise newcomers to bring your personal computers, because the FEMA computers are slow and Windows-y and you’re not supposed to use them for personal business anyway. For someone who has never owned a smartphone, the Blackberries are your best friend and worst nightmare; they allow you to stay in touch instantly with everyone at all times, and they force you to stay in touch with everyone at all times.  

As far as clothing, we just got that a couple of days ago. Everyone gets three FEMA Corps T-shirts, two like polo shirts, one long-sleeved shirt, one sweatshirt, one rain jacket and one baseball cap (the last two items magically transform the wearer, visually speaking, into a high school football coach). To Vinton: Plan for this when you’re packing your red bags!! I wasn’t informed about what we’re getting, and now I have no earthly idea how I’m going to fit all my swag in the bag. Now you know better than I did. Prepare accordingly.

Food. When I was looking up data for my Mississippi and Alabama preparation posts, I discovered that those states (and the Deep South in general) have really high obesity rates. After eating pure Southern food for a week, I now completely understand why. Don’t get me wrong, everything is absolutely delicious, but I tried early on in my stay to regulate my food intake to one incredibly unhealthy thing per day. That failed. Then I tried to regulate it to one incredibly unhealthy thing per meal, and sadly, that failed too. I’ve never seen so much fried food in one place in my entire life, most of which has been meat. (My vegetarian friends tell me their options are decent but monotonous.)

Worldview and expectations. As I described a few posts ago, the classes are a lot less hardass-y than we thought going in. It looks like FEMA really made a concerted effort to teach to our generation… which makes sense, because generational issues are a huge thing at FEMA. Most of the FEMA higher-ups are on their second career, having retired from the military or a fire department or something before coming to emergency management. (Nancy Jo, one of my teachers, is on her fourth career.) At a Q & A panel yesterday, the panelists agreed that most FEMA reservists were in their late fifties, if not their sixties. We even heard yesterday that at least one nonagenarian has been lending a hand!

One of the benefits of FEMA Corps, from FEMA’s point of view, is infusing new blood into the organization. The Corps is on a five-year agreement with CNCS, and I think the idea is that we’re going to be something of a farm system for FEMA. Another panelist mentioned that CNCS and FEMA were looking into getting us preferential treatment for government job openings after this year, and my teachers kept pushing the idea of a career at FEMA during class. It seems like there will certainly be opportunities for us in FEMA after this year is over, is what I’m trying to say. If that’s your thing, you’re in a good spot.

Classes. The first week is a basic overview of FEMA: what they do, why they do it, what’s their legal authority for doing it, what they do not do, where their money goes. The second week, which starts today, is specialist position-specific training. Again, the class structure is much more forgiving than you might expect in a hardcore Department of Homeland Security facility. There are lots of Powerpoint slides that can get monotonous, but they’re pretty good about designing creative activities for you (although I’m sworn to secrecy about the details), and everything is pretty easy to follow. The test at the end is not worth mentioning, except to say, really don’t worry about it. (They also let you keep the binder we got, which primitive man could probably build a house with. It’s large, thick and certainly will not fit in my backpack.)

Lodging. Is awesome. If not for the barbed wire around campus, you’d never know you weren’t staying in a classy hotel. DHS doesn’t exactly help itself by designating buildings by numbers (“Building 61” just sounds ominous), but buildings 322 and 294 are posh as hell. There are nice lounges, foosball tables and comfy couches, and the whole place has cable TV. Outside, the grass is well-manicured and (mostly) free of fire ants. There are lots of grassy fields and we’re doing team-by-team physical training, so Ultimate Frisbee has rapidly become a huge thing. Bring your disc if you have one. The only caveat is that we’re not allowed in the bar on campus, and the Anniston bars are far away and can only be reached by government van, which is officially prohibited.

So that’s Anniston. All the Alabama research I did turned out to be mostly useless, because there are few opportunities to explore outside the CDP, but inside the wire is still a good time. Be warned that the training is constant and there are no days off. Today (Sunday) was my first half-day off since arrival, and we still have class in the afternoon. It’s a lot of time in the classroom, but we're hungry for it. Hope the Vintoners are feeling the same way.

You're Not Weird, You're Fantastic. And Either Way is Okay.

"Editor's" Note: This isn't a NCCC/FEMA Corps post, because there are days when I don't do that or there's nothing much to write about. I've got several completed blogs just sitting on my computer for days like these. If you're just here for the NCCC stuff, apologies, come back tomorrow. If you're interested in what else I have to say, read on, Macduff.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard a friend or an acquaintance or a random stranger say something unusual or interesting or awesome about themselves, and them follow it up with some variation on the following phrase: “I’m weird like that”. If you hang out with interesting, often introverted people as much as I do, you’ve probably heard that phrase too, or perhaps one of its variations. Language notwithstanding, the underlying sentiment in there has always bothered me, and I’m going to try and talk out the why of that in this space.

 It seems to me that there are two basic meanings for that phrase, given the words and the context in which it is typically used. The first, by far the more common, is apologetic. It’s saying “Hey, there’s this aspect of me that is unique or uncommon or, for whatever reason, not generally accepted by most people I talk to. Because of that, I feel as though I need to give this little half-apology for it, as though I were ashamed of my uniqueness.”

That bothers me because you’re not really apologizing for your habit/interest/behavior, whatever’s under question, are you? You’re saying ‘sorry’ for yourself, for the way you are that guides you towards those interests. By apologizing for a specific manifestation of your personality, you’re apologizing for all of yourself, in a sense. And you should never—you should never have to—apologize for yourself. I like to tell people that there’s no such thing as a guilty pleasure, because why be ashamed of the stuff that makes you happy?* The same thing goes for your behavior or habits. If you’re not hurting others with your actions/beliefs/habits, I really don’t see the need to be ashamed of them.

The second meaning of the phrase is more self-congratulatory then anything else. It’s an attempt to take that unusual trait and leverage it into prestige. Using “I’m weird” this way is saying “This unique thing that I do also makes me unique. I am better, or at least more interesting, then you because I have cool interests and you don’t.”

I’m definitely prejudiced against this trait because a certain scumbag that I used to know did it often, but it still rankles me even without the taint. Your interests are certainly part of you, but they don’t define you. They don’t impact who you are as a human being. And more importantly in this context, they don’t make you unique or special. What you do or say or like is part of you, but it neither defines you nor makes you better than anyone who doesn’t share that special quality. You’re not smarter because you read POLITICO instead of People or more fun because you wear flip-flops instead of sneakers. Personality comes from inside, not outside.

You could think of those two meanings, apology and pride, as straying to one or the other extreme of a long continuum. Your interests/behavior/habits are part of you as surely as your  frontal lobe, but they’re neither something to be ashamed of nor something to crow over. What you do is just what you do. I think both meanings come from perceived societal standards; the apology from supposedly falling short of them, the pride from thinking you’ve transcended them. In reality, neither is true or needed. It’s okay to just be you, whatever that means. No apology is needed and no self-glorification will be accepted. It’s just you sitting right in the middle of the continuum, and that’s not weird, it’s fantastically, gloriously normal. And that’s much more liberating, because it helps you realize that everyone has “weird” interests; everyone is stuck in the middle with you. Far from flouting a standard, you’re part of a vast and interesting crowd. I think that’s absolutely wonderful.

*Assuming that poisoning kittens or whatever isn’t what makes you happy. There are society-wide standards, in my book anyway, but they’re much broader and more allowing then what people typically assign themselves. Just… leave the kittens alone.

Media from the Inside: We Look Like What?

I have scanty experience in public relations. I did three months as a P.R. intern for the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, but all I did was write and edit press releases. I never so much as smelled a member of the print or online media, unless it was a whiff of myself; I've been writing for high school, college and local online newspapers/magazines for the last five or six years, but regardless of the outlet, I've always been the guy asking the questions. On Friday, I was really and truly on the inside for the first time. I was preparing to be the guy that gets interviewed, not the guy who does the interviewing, and it's actually a hell of a culture shock going from one to the other.

The Center for Domestic Preparedness's curriculum has ten different units, one of which is talking to the media. We covered that one earlier this afternoon. The message was simple: say your piece and shut up. Talk about your Americorps service until you're blue in the face, talk about those parts of FEMA about which you can speak with authority (mine would be Community Relations, since that's my specialist role), but for heaven's sake "stay in your lane" when it comes to FEMA. Don't speculate. Don't talk about things you aren't an expert in. Don't give people false hope by speaking on topics you know nothing about. Just smile politely, get their name and the name of their media outlet, and go do your job away from the cameras.

There are plenty of reasons why this makes sense. As Summit V was told, we are the face of FEMA; as CR Specialists, we will be the first FEMA representatives that anybody sees. If we get on local TV or radio or in the newspaper, our job is to get the word out about what FEMA does, what Americorps does, and what we can do for the people in any affected area. Why? Because it helps people to have good and accurate information. Getting the good word out early could save lives. And, let's be honest, coming off well with the media also helps our bottom line. People meeting, liking and trusting FEMA Corps members means FEMA has an easier time with the disaster relief effort and improves FEMA's reputation in a given community, and Americorps members being popular improves Americorps's chances of not getting cut out of the federal budget.

This is all positive and good. But let me say my piece about being a member of the media. When you read professional journalists writing about why it's important to have a class of professional journalists, things get a bit self-righteous. We're the watchdogs, we say. We're the guys who keep government honest and ferret out corruption; we're the eyes and the ears of the general public, for whom we work. We're the unofficial fourth branch of American politics. But from inside a government organization, the media is... not exactly the enemy, but more like an extremely shifty ally that has to be watched every minute. Some helpful tips from our handy interview notecard include "do not get lured into a friendly conversation", "do not be overtly defensive or sarcastic", "stay on message and avoid traps" and "do not apologize or attack". There are plenty of innocuous tips in there, but those make it sound like I'll be fighting reporters for control of the FEMA message. That is startling, to say the least.

I'm not saying I buy the idea that journalism is a quasi-holy duty that has to be fulfilled for American politics to work, but I do generally think that we--journalists "we"--are out there doing good work on behalf of the public. I've done a lot of interviews in the past few years; I've interviewed local businessmen, basketball coaches, professors, college administrative staff, board members of nonprofit organizations, lawyers, doctors, even representatives of a member of Congress. Never once have I asked a "gotcha" question, tried to sucker someone into an answer, set a conversational trap or failed to identify myself as a journalist in a timely fashion. Yes, I have asked tough questions; that's part of the job. Yes, I have tried to identify interesting or juicy things that could make a story. That is also part of the job. But the crap I listed a couple of sentences ago, as far as I'm concerned, is bush league. It's not something you do if you want to be taken seriously.

We seem to be preparing as if all journalists operated in such a scuzzy fashion, and from a planning standpoint, it makes sense to prepare for the worst; local news, especially local newsmen that have been bitten by the self-righteous bug, certainly do that sometimes. But the majority of journalists I have known and learned from do not behave in such an amateurish manner, nor do I. If this is how journalists look from inside FEMA, then I'm disappointed in the quality of journalism that FEMA has interacted with. We're not the enemy. We're trying to help.

Ideally, the journalists I end up interacting with (if any) will be more in line with my idealistic definition (I'm young, I can be that) than FEMA's more pessimistic one. If they don't, I'll certainly be glad of the preparation; hell, I'm glad of it now, just so I know what might be coming. But if they act like professionals and ask good questions, I'll give good answers (or refer them to the people who have said answers if said answers aren't in my lane, FEMA overlords), I won't be disappointed. I'll be ecstatic. That's how this is supposed to work.