Our end game? We want government officials to respond to media requests for comment.

At Gov. Jim Justice’s weekly media briefing Wednesday, West Virginia Watch reporter Caity Coyne questioned what we’ve been told is a policy of the Justice administration about speaking with the media.

“I know myself and other members of the media have been told there has been some sort of suggestion or directive from your office to state agencies to not speak to media without your office’s approval, even, it seems, for clarifying questions following public meetings. Can you please confirm whether public officials with state agencies are allowed to talk to press without your approval? If there is some sort of policy, can you explain the justification for it and what exactly it entails?” Coyne asked.

Justice’s answer: “OK, Caity, I want you to hear this loud and clear. First and foremost, every single employee that we have in my opinion needs to be fully transparent. If they choose to talk to you, that’s their prerogative from my standpoint.”

You can’t in the same breath say you tell people you want them to be transparent, and then say whether they talk to the media or not is “their prerogative.” If you want transparency, you need to tell state agencies that they can and should be responding to the media’s questions.

Coyne asked this question after an incident Dec. 12 during the legislative interims. She was reporting on an update on state jails, and tried to talk to officials after they spoke during a committee hearing to get some clarification. She was told multiple times that officials from state agencies weren’t authorized to speak with the press without prior approval from the governor’s office. She explained she didn’t want an interview, just some clarification on things they already said, and she would even do it on background. She was told to call Andy Malinoski, spokesperson for Department of Homeland Security, so he could clear it with Justice’s Press Secretary C.J. Harvey. The Department of Homeland Security oversees West Virginia’s prison system.

Justice then said his office offered her an interview the day after her story ran, and she declined it. Yes, she declined it because her story had already run and there was no longer a need to talk to them — it was also scheduled for the exact same time as Justice’s briefing.

“I don’t have any idea what your end goal is, but at the end of the day, there is no secrecy on my part,” Justice said.

“If you have an end game … just a gotcha moment end game, from the standpoint of my folks, they’re smart, they’re good people, and if they say I need to get back to you on something, you need to be respectful of that.”

Governor, don’t ask for respect when you don’t give it — you were 40 minutes late to your own briefing, which is typical. My reporters are also smart and good people. But half the time, they don’t even get responses. We would love to hear, “I’ll get back to you.” That would at least acknowledge that we’ve asked a question. We have no problem waiting, but you have to also understand that we have deadlines. Last week was not the first time reporters have heard someone say that the governor’s office won’t let them speak to the press without going through his office first; it’s been happening for years.

Coyne was not given an opportunity to respond about why she declined the interview — she was muted so Justice could get his “gotcha” moment. Easy to do when a press conference isn’t held in person.

By the way, I’m still waiting for Harvey to respond to my email asking why Justice hasn’t returned to in-person media briefings.

Talking to state agencies is a big part of a reporter’s job. We do this so we can clarify things we don’t understand, and get correct and up-to-date information. We don’t have time to wait for multiple calls to be made to get approval for an interview, especially during a legislative session. We don’t want to have to run a correction the next day because someone wouldn’t answer a question when we reached out. We want to write fair and accurate stories, and it’s been harder to do that under Justice’s administration than any other in the last 20 years.

We’re not trying to ask gotcha questions — we’re just trying to report the news. We wish Justice would respect that.