Over the past month, SFGATE’s national parks bureau has sent dozens of inquiries to public affairs specialists at the National Park Service. Journalists had questions about everything from the rapidly dwindling snowpack in Lassen Volcanic National Park to the first grizzly bear to wake up in Yellowstone National Park to quicksand in national parks across the American Southwest.

Park Service officials did not answer a single one of the questions — and now we know why. According to internal communications reviewed by SFGATE, and interviews with multiple insiders who requested and were granted anonymity under Hearst’s ethics policy because they are afraid of losing their jobs, the Department of the Interior’s Public Affairs Office has blacklisted SFGATE.

“We have received direction to not respond in any way to any inquiries received no matter the topic from SFGATE,” one employee said. “This is the only outlet that we have been instructed to ignore, and we have responded to other outlets on the same topics that SFGATE has asked about.”

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Insiders say the ban on providing information to an entire media organization is likely unprecedented. “On a national level, you guys are the only ones I’ve ever heard of getting blacklisted,” a communications employee said. “There may be a park that has a local paper they don’t work with, but I haven’t heard about that either.”

A view of the welcome sign during heavy snow and rain as a winter storm warning is issued at Yosemite National Park, Calif., on Feb. 17, 2026.

Although the Department of the Interior has publicly expressed dissatisfaction with SFGATE’s reporting in the past, particularly regarding lawlessness in Yosemite National Park, insiders say the last straw was apparently a Feb. 10 article with the headline “‘Unprecedented and a mess’: Sweeping new rules restrict nearly all aspects of national park communications.”

Don't let Google decide who you trust.

The story details how the Interior Department stripped the autonomy of most of the Park Service’s communicators, centralizing control of all messaging and dramatically narrowing who has the authority to interact with the media and the public.

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Reached by email, Interior Department communications........

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