NEW YORK It appears the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has found the answer to nosy reporters in the two years since Hurricane Katrina: have a press conference and have your own people ask the questions.

According to columnist Al Kamen in The Washington Post, a FEMA press briefing in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday related to the California wildfires included several limitations that made press involvement difficult.

Kamen writes that reporters had only 15 minutes to get to the event and could not ask questions if they chose to link up via a conference call. When the briefing occurred, Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson, the deputy administrator, received a number of questions from FEMA staffers.

"Johnson stood behind a lectern and began with an overview before saying he would take a few questions. The first questions were about the 'commodities' being shipped to Southern California and how officials are dealing with people who refuse to evacuate. He responded eloquently," Kamen wrote. "He was apparently quite familiar with the reporters -- in one case, he appears to say 'Mike' and points to a reporter -- and was asked an oddly in-house question about 'what it means to have an emergency declaration as opposed to a major disaster declaration' signed by the president. He once again explained smoothly."

Kamen later states: "the questions were asked by FEMA staffers playing reporters. We're told the questions were asked by Cindy Taylor, FEMA's deputy director of external affairs, and by 'Mike' Widomski, the deputy director of public affairs. Director of External Affairs John 'Pat' Philbin asked a question, and another came, we understand, from someone who sounds like press aide Ali Kirin."

FEMA officials told Kamen that their people did not make up the questions and Johnson did not know what was to be asked.

"We pulled questions from those we had been getting from reporters earlier in the day," Widomski told Kamen, adding that, despite the short notice, "we were expecting the press to come," he said.

"If the worst thing that happens to me in this disaster is that we had staff in the chairs to ask questions that reporters had been asking all day," Widomski said, "trust me, I'll be happy."

Noted Kamen: "Heck of a job, Harvey."