As he glides toward a second term in November (his Republican challenger winning just 1/33rd of his vote total in the May primary), Mayor Brandon Scott is gearing up to neutralize what he privately calls his real “opponent” – the media and media stories that don’t conform to his sunny view of Baltimore on his watch.

In the current budget, expenditures for the Mayor’s Office of Communications increase 68% – from $631,000 to $1,062,000.

The boost enables Scott to carry out his plan to hire a new comms director to report to Bryan Doherty, the former director, who recently was named Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications & Strategic Policy. (Three previous comms directors have come and gone under Scott.)

Last Friday, Doherty sent out a two-page memo to cabinet heads that lays out “expectations from the mayor’s office in how agencies and mayoral offices engage with the media” during a second term.

Its central theme of controlling the message signals a renewed effort to curtain off and inoculate against bad headlines a mayor known for his reluctance to interact with reporters or tolerate perceived disloyalty by city employees.

The summer was tough on the mayor’s public image after a springtime plethora of positive press about his resolve to rebuild the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge. (A Baltimore mayor actually has little to do with reconstructing anything outside of the city’s boundaries.)

“Occasionally we will step in to lend the mayor’s voice or elevate the opportunity to the mayor”  – Bryan Doherty memo.

The administration was rocked by two Inspector General reports about deplorable conditions at city sanitation yards, followed by the widely publicized death of a 36-year-old solid waste crew member who collapsed on the job from hyperthermia.

“It is imperative,” Doherty writes in the memo, that the mayor be alerted to any and all press inquiries made to city agencies.

“The mayor will often face questions at public events that reporters had already reached out to agencies about earlier in the day, without knowing the agency has already received the inquiry on that issue.

“In order to ensure the proper alignment, agency PIOs should keep the mayor’s communications team informed of all proactive and reactive communications.”

“Minimizing contradictions”

While in no way meant to slow down agency responses to the media or to take away the autonomy of the PIOs, Doherty says, “occasionally we will step in to lend the mayor’s voice or elevate the opportunity to the mayor.”

Such intervention will be done in the spirit of “minimizing confusion or contradictions between agencies,” he explains.

“[Our] overarching request is to simply keep the mayor’s office informed of every communication deliverable and interaction with the press that an agency has, whether through read-outs in standard meetings like the Weekly PIO Call and the Chiefs of Staff meetings or through direct outreach to the mayor’s office.”

He then depicts, with arrows, the seven steps that Public Information Officers need to take before responding to media questions:

Agency receives press inquiry → Mayor’s office informed of inquiry → Agency simultaneously works on proposed response → Agency head reviews and approves → Mayor’s office reviews proposed response and provides acknowledgement, feedback or approval → If needed, agency heads approve updated statement → Response sent.

As for “proactive” announcements about an agency’s initiatives or accomplishments, the procedure is a bit less cumbersome.

Five steps are outlined to create, inform, review, approve and release flattering media material.

“This is not about needing to provide a sign-off on every tweet, post and Instagram story going out from dozens of city agencies,” he says.

But it does mean that all press releases and interactions with journalists should be approached with the same deliverable in mind:

“Strengthening all our abilities to message about the mayor’s priorities.”