FEMA's "press conference"

I just read this story about FEMA's press conference about the California wildfires. Apparently, FEMA just had their own employees attend the press conference, which was announced just 15 minutes before it started, and had them ask what amounted to softball questions. They only allowed real reporters to telephone in to the conference and listen in, but they could not ask any questions. Of course, FEMA is taking a major hit over this, which certainly seems appropriate. This organization came under tremendous fire for its handling of Hurricane Katrina, and here they manipulated the news in an attempt to make themselves look better. I think FEMA would have been better off just not answering any questions rather than staging a press conference that only damaged their credibility even further. I was just very surprised that any group would be so foolish to try to pull off such a deceptive strategy.