Institutional Press Policies (University of Alaska Fairbanks)
| Multi Request | Institutional Press Policies |
| Submitted | May 31, 2023 |
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Communications
From: Anne Marie Tamburro
To Whom It May Concern:
Pursuant to the Alaska Public Records Act, I hereby request the following records:
1. Any policy, guidance, handbook, manual, or standard contract concerning the institution’s interactions or relationship with members of the news media, reporters, or journalists, including student journalists.
2. Any policy, guidance, handbook, or manual concerning the interactions or communications of institutional employees, including faculty, administrators, staff, and student employees, with the news media, reporters, or journalists, including student journalists.
Please note that this request does not seek a search of faculty or student email accounts or records. These requests should in no way be construed to include a review or search of email accounts, websites, or other forms of data or document retention which are controlled by students, alumni, or faculty members, nor by governmental or advisory bodies controlled by the same, except insofar as any such individuals also serve in an administrative capacity and the records were created or are held by the individual in that capacity. Any search should be limited to documents held by the administration and/or its staff members, including records created or maintained by persons acting in the capacity of administrators or staff members.
This request is made on behalf of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization that aims to defend and sustain the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought. This request concerns a matter of public interest. The records are sought for the purpose of researching and educating the public about policies affecting student journalists' ability to engage in news gathering and reporting on college and university campuses.
The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.
In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.
Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 10 business days, as the statute requires.
Sincerely,
Anne Marie Tamburro
From: Muckrock Staff
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following Alaska Public Records Act request, copied below, and originally submitted on June 1, 2023. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: University of Alaska Fairbanks
Hello Anne Marie,
Here are links to a couple of policies/regulations that could be relevant. For some context, the University of Alaska has four “major administrative units,” which you will see referred to as MAUs in the policies and regulations. UAF is one of the four MAUs. The other three are the University of Alaska Anchorage, the University of Alaska Southeast and the University of Alaska system office.
Policy and regulation on official university spokespeople. (These don’t specifically call out press, but rather deal with who speaks for the university to government entities. That said, there is notation about providing public information, so I thought these might provide some context.):
https://www.alaska.edu/bor/policy-regulations/chapter-02-01-president.php#P02.01.040
https://www.alaska.edu/bor/policy-regulations/chapter-02-01-president.php#R02.01.040
This is university policy and regulation on IT resources and the data contained therein. Again, it doesn’t specifically talk about interacting with the press, but will give a sense of the different types of data we deal with at the university:
https://www.alaska.edu/bor/policy-regulations/chapter-02-07-information-resources.php
This is the policy regarding crisis communication and includes information about who speaks to the press in a crisis or emergency:
And this is UAF’s emergency website. There’s info toward the bottom about speaking with the press in emergency situations:
Here’s UAF’s webpage with information about working with the media:
https://www.uaf.edu/universityrelations/services/public-affairs/media-relations.php
Individual units at UAF sometimes have educational materials for their scientists about working with the media. Here’s an example of one of the most comprehensive sets of materials from one of our research units:
https://sites.google.com/alaska.edu/iarc-comms-guide/working-with-the-media
In addition to all of the above, as a public institution, we routinely field requests from journalists looking for experts in a wide variety of subjects. If we have someone who has that expertise and is available, I encourage our experts to share that expertise with a reporter. We want to be a resource for journalists and to help them get the information they need to share accurate information with the public. On more institutional subjects like budget or policy, our goal is to find the person best suited to give a journalist the information they need for their story and to get that information to them in a timely manner. Sometimes that means talking to a university spokesperson like me. Other times the source could be a subject matter expert from our budget office or facilities team, for example.
Regarding student media, we treat them just like any other news organization.
Please reach out if you have any additional questions or need more information. I’m happy to help in any way I can.
Thanks,
MG
Marmian Grimes
Senior public information officer
University of Alaska Fairbanks
907-474-7902 (office)
907-460-4750 (mobile)
marmian.grimes@alaska.edu
@MarmianGrimes
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