But that is essentially orthogonal to the issue of whether embargoes should be "close-hold", in those cases where the FDA does trust a reporter enough to grant them early access. After all, if the reporter merely wants to cast aspersions and FUD, a close-hold embargo doesn't really prevent them from doing so; they can probably come up with it on their own, or cite preexisting criticism related to the subject (regardless of how well it matches up with the exact announcement at hand). It is only if they want to get informed, on-topic reactions from sources with relevant knowledge and experience that the embargo gets in the way. Indeed, such an embargo may all but force even well-meaning journalists to include misleading or useless "context" - decreasing the accuracy of the article - just to provide some slight semblance of impartiality, as in this example from the Scientific American article:
> CBS plunked down an out-of-context quotation from the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, probably in hopes that readers wouldn't notice that it was two months old.
Now, I suppose it's possible that well-meaning journalists end up too credulously repeating the statements of sources with, as you say, vested interests in bashing the FDA. I suppose hamstringing them from even talking to those sources, along with all others, could hypothetically increase the overall accuracy of the article.
But let's be real. What you end up with is essentially a series of glorified press releases. Press releases have their place: to inform the public of a particular organization's viewpoint. True, the FDA is an expert organization and chances are its viewpoints are typically reasonable - valid - plausible. Indeed, they're almost certainly more studied and thorough than a quick reaction from any other source. But even so, valid is not the same as right, and for issues as contentious as the ones the FDA often ends up having to deal with, there is rarely any single right viewpoint. Thus citing a range of sources, rather than providing the public with any organization's viewpoint alone, is the only responsible thing to do. That is not yellow journalism: it is the essence of journalism.
Seriously: do you really think -
> Even after he updated his piece later in the day to get some outside comments, there was little hint of how controversial the new rules were. Members of the tobacco industry were generally unhappy with increased federal regulation of their business, while antitobacco advocates tended to argue that the new regulations were far too weak and took way too long to promulgate. And there was no mention, in Felberbaum's article, at least, that the agency had tried to regulate e-cigarettes several years earlier but was slapped down with a stinging rebuke from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia
- that omitting this context is an improvement?