Over the years, we’ve written a great deal about ways in which government officials can improve their relationship with the press. We know there’s a lot of frustration in state and local governments about the coverage (or lack of coverage) they receive.

In our conversations with government officials, we often inquire as to ways that members of the press could do a better job in covering their governments. So, based on decades we've spent writing about state and local management and policy, we've collected a handful of ideas we'd like to share. (If you have other thoughts, we should include, please send hem in and we'll add to this list in a subsequent column.)

Six tips to help journalists improve state and local government coverage:

1.     Don’t expect rapid change when new policies or practices are introduced. Articles that take governments to task for the absence of results shortly after a new policy is put into place can miss the fact that it takes time to implement almost any new policy — and if the results aren’t immediate, it doesn’t mean that it’s a failure.

2.     Social policy issues are complex and despite the publicly absolutist stance taken in political discussions, government practices and policies are rarely all bad or all good. They usually have some elements that are working well and others that cause problems. A flaw, or even a bunch of flaws, in a new policy may not signal the need for the policy to be abandoned. It’s kind of like the proverbial dike with a hole. The solution isn’t to tear down the dike, but to stick a finger in the opening.

3.     Government officials who are trained to deal with the press (actually just about anyone who is trained to deal with the press) have learned to skirt questions asked so they can answer entirely different questions of their choosing. At various times we’ve had media training, and this is exactly what we’ve been told: “Don’t worry about the questions you’re asked. Just answer the question you wanted to be asked.” We try hard not to let government officials get away with this frustrating bait and switch.

4.     Tamp down on cynicism. All journalists covering government have been lied to at various points in their careers, but in our experience — and we’ve had thousands of interviews covering every state and large city and county in the country — we’ve found that most government employees are diligent, hardworking and inclined to be as candid as they’re permitted to be.

5.     Just because a policy or new program is passed by the legislature and is signed by a governor doesn’t mean it’s actually going to happen. If a bill isn’t funded, the fact that it passed may only be symbolic. We wish more journalists would follow up on important new policies to see what’s actually happened after some legislator ballyhoos this grand accomplishment.

6.     Most ideas in government have been tried before. Just check out our slide show on transparency and you’ll see all the new ideas about budget transparency that were on exhibit in 1908. Of course, that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with trying them again. “Whatever government tried before in performance management, can be tried again, with the new technologies available,” John Kamensky, emeritus senior fellow with the IBM Center for the Business of Government, told us some years ago. It’s truer than ever now.

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