The recovery efforts following Hurricane Helene in Western North Carolina have been marred by a concerning drift toward opaque governance. As a journalist who is mostly deaf, I have observed a disturbing pattern: state agencies are increasingly relying on ephemeral verbal communication—such as podcasts—while simultaneously scrubbing their own public digital records. When the North Carolina Department of Public Safety (NCDPS) released a podcast episode in November 2025 regarding disaster-era misinformation, it lacked a transcript, creating an immediate accessibility barrier for the hearing-impaired. By failing to provide written documentation, the government doesn’t just alienate those with disabilities; it avoids the very accountability that written public records are designed to uphold.
The podcast itself, featuring North Carolina Emergency Management (NCEM) specialist Brian Haines, serves as a case study in the tension between disaster management and transparency. Haines describes a massive state-led effort to monitor social media and track millions of online mentions of misinformation. While the government certainly has a mandate to counteract dangerous falsehoods during a catastrophe, this massive, state-sponsored data-gathering campaign raises significant questions. Who exactly is being monitored, what criteria define “trusted media partners,” and what safeguards are in place to ensure these surveillance tools are not used to influence public perception or stifle legitimate dissent?
Perhaps the most blatant disregard for public accountability is the recent deletion of the “Helene Facts” webpage. This site was touted by officials as the definitive source for “ground truth” during the post-storm crisis. By July 2026, however, the page had been scrubbed, resulting in a “404 – Page Not Found” error. When officials urge citizens to rely on government-sanctioned information while simultaneously destroying the archives of that information, they undermine their own credibility. In a healthy democracy, public records should be treated with permanence, yet our current administration seems to prefer a digital “now” that leaves no breadcrumbs for citizens or journalists to follow once the immediate crisis has subsided.
The reliance on these informal, disposable channels of communication creates a dangerous precedent for government-press relations. When state agencies define certain news outlets as “trusted partners,” they invite a chilling effect on independent journalism. True journalism is not a megaphone for state press releases; it is a check on power that requires verifying claims, analyzing data, and asking uncomfortable questions regardless of which political party holds the reins of the governor’s mansion. When the government dictates what constitutes a “credible source,” it drifts dangerously close to the very disinformation it claims to be fighting, essentially setting the rules of the game to ensure it always wins.
We must remember that the legitimacy of our constitutional republic is predicated on the idea that power resides with the people, not the bureaucracy. A government that operates without scrutiny is a government that has ceased to serve the public. Accessibility for the deaf and hard of hearing isn’t just about inclusion—it is about the fundamental right to access the same information as the rest of the citizenry. If we accept a culture where official communications are delivered via untranscribed audio and later deleted from the web, we are surrendering our capacity to audit the decisions that cost taxpayers millions and affect our most vulnerable communities.
Ultimately, holding the government accountable is not an act of hostility; it is a civic duty. While misinformation is a genuine threat during emergencies, the solution is not to grant the state unchecked power to define the truth or to hide their records from public view. A free society requires that we continue to question, screenshot, archive, and demand transparency. As we recover from tragedies like Helene, the most vital recovery is that of the public record itself. If we fail to defend the right to inspect our government’s actions, we risk losing the very foundation of the democracy we claim to protect.