Athletics needs more openness

Under the new administration of athletics director Michael McNeely and his media relations director, Jeff Fanter, getting access to department administrators is nearly impossible.\nAll interview requests from the media must go through Fanter, and they are rarely granted.\nFor example, when $2,300 was stolen from the athletic ticket office, the IDS asked to interview McNeely and ticket office manager Mike Roberts. Fanter turned down the requests as soon as the question was asked.\nWhen the IDS reported last week that the University was considering a proposal that could significantly change the structure of the athletics department, we made repeated requests for interviews with McNeely. Requests were made to McNeely's office several days before the story ran. Additional messages were left with Fanter the day before the story was to run.\nFanter did return the IDS messages about the interview request and said he would be able to give us an answer in several days. By that time, the story was running the next day. Fanter told us after the article ran that McNeely and the athletics department would have no comment in follow-up articles.\nOther media outlets have encountered the same difficulty, sometimes being told they will have to wait weeks to interview McNeely.\nThis is absurd. McNeely is a public official, heading a state agency with an annual budget of tens of millions of dollars. It is reasonable for the citizens of Indiana to expect those who control public money to be willing to talk about the management of their departments and agencies. \nThe idea of having to wait several days to interview McNeely on topics about which he should already be informed may sound reasonable -- until you compare it to how that process works with other public officials. \nThe only other person at IU whom we have to go through another person to interview is Myles Brand. When we contact his spokeswoman, Susan Dillman, we usually receive either a phone call or at least a few quotes from the president. The response is almost always within a few hours.\nEveryone else at the University -- including the vice presidents that McNeely reports to and the deans of the various schools -- schedule their own interviews and can usually be reached by calling their offices. We frequently call administrators -- even vice presidents of the University -- at home. Most of them consider it a part of their job to make sure the University community has their side of the story.\nThe Office of Communications and Marketing trusts administrators at the managerial level and above to know when they should or should not comment, and when they should suggest we call Dillman.\nWhen we need to reach the mayor of Bloomington, our congressmen or members of the board of trustees, we usually receive a response before the end of the day. Is McNeely more important and busy than these people?\nThis new public relations policy of the athletics department to delay and deny is not befitting the stature of such a storied and well-known public agency.\nStaff vote: 13 - 0 - 2\nyes - no - abstain