How Do We Know What We Know?

Given my current job, there are a lot of things I would like to write about that I can't address - that doesn't mean I don't have opinions about them or points of view, but as the Chief of Staff of an Executive Branch agency, I have to be careful about what I say in public.

However, there is a phenomenon not related to any specific policy issue that I am experiencing again in relation to the FAA re-authorization bill and the partial shutdown of the FAA that I think I can comment on without being in danger of crossing any ethical or legal lines.

The controversy over the FAA bill started with three provisions that affect the National Mediation Board, and a rule that the Board passed last year. We are not part of the FAA, nor is there any direct connection between us and the FAA's work, so it is curious that the FAA funding bill would be used to tack on three provisions that affect the NMB. But that's another story.

Without going into specifics, I have found it to be the case that not one of the "expert" journalists and commentators have actually gotten the basic facts of the matter right, and not one has described the nature of the rule that is at the base of the conflict correctly. Granted, I am pretty well versed on what is going on, but the reporting and commenting has been notably lacking, sometimes to the point of being shoddy - one NPR expert couldn't even correctly offer the name of the legislation under which the rule was changed. Also puzzling is that the NMB has not been contacted at all to supply background for any of the talking heads or print journalists.

This reminds me, again, of something I tell dispute resolution students all the time - research from afar, reading journalistic accounts, and taking the word of experts will get you into trouble. Nothing replaces "local knowledge," and it is unlikely that any "outsider" will ever understand any conflict in the way or at the level that someone who is a party to the conflict understands it. That seems like such an obvious thing, but the FAA affair has really brought it home to me in spades.