I've frequently warned it's unwise to argue with those who buy ink by the barrel. Unfortunately, the Risk and Insurance Management Society ignored that advice, excluding reporters from a legislative briefing in Washington last week unless they agreed to abide by a gag order.

I've never seen anything like the “Non-Disclosure and Confidentiality Agreement” RIMS said we must sign or else have our reporters locked out of a “RIMS On The Hill” panel discussion among congressional staff members.

The issues discussed were of keen interest to risk managers, but weren't exactly matters of national security–the status of bills to set federal standards for surplus lines and reinsurance oversight, establish an optional federal charter, and amend the National Risk Retention Act.

This was not an intimate meeting with a handful of RIMS lobbyists and senior officers. It was a panel discussion before some 40 people, featuring those working on the taxpayer's dime. Such public servants should not be speaking off the record and behind closed doors.

Yet we in the press were told in no uncertain terms that unless we agreed to sign on the dotted line, we could not attend.

“The Media Representative warrants that he will not directly or indirectly attribute any comments made by the Congressional staff members at the Program in subsequent media stories about the event,” said the agreement–one no self-respecting journalist would sign.

Besides, what makes these staffers think statements made in front of dozens of people would remain private? Especially since nonmedia attendees were not asked to sign any confidentiality agreement.

Those scheduled to appear included some of the Hill's top behind-the-scenes power brokers, including Kathleen Mellody (Democratic counsel to the House Insurance Subcommittee) and Robert Gordon Sr. (Republican counsel to the House Financial Services Committee), along with Sarah Kline (Democratic counsel) and Andrew Olmem (Republican counsel) on the Senate Banking Committee. Shame on all of them.

I protested vigorously to the RIMS media representative, who seemed genuinely sorry to be caught in a tug of war between her general counsel, R. Mark Prysock, and the press–who, after all, RIMS had invited to cover the event long before any of this confidentiality nonsense came up.

Noting that we cover Hill briefings all the time, and have never been asked to sign a gag order, I gave RIMS the weekend to clear up this “misunderstanding” and do the right thing. But come Monday morning, the status quo remained and the panel went on without press coverage.

This goes to show you how badly media relations can be screwed up once you let lawyers get involved. Attorneys are short-sighted and tone deaf to the damage they can do to an organization's reputation for openness and fair play among the media.

I was told the prohibition against being quoted was handed down at the last minute as a condition of the panelists showing up. If so, RIMS should have told these characters to take a hike. If the congressional staffers didn't feel they could speak on the record, they shouldn't have appeared on a public program in the first place.

Ironically, in April, during the RIMS annual conference in San Diego, for the second straight year I led a panel of my fellow insurance publication editors in a discussion of how risk managers can cooperate with the media to disseminate valuable information while protecting the reputation of their organizations.

It's too bad RIMS itself failed to heed the recommendations we offered that day.