A pair of State Department briefings in connection with the UN General Assembly meetings in New York in recent days suggest President Barack Obama’s drive to bring more transparency to the U.S. government is, well, a work in progress.

Obama is proudly touting a new open government partnership, a group of 30 countries committing to greater transparency and to share best practices on making government more accessible to the public. However, journalists could not hope but note the irony when State Department officials insisted that a briefing Monday on the new effort be conducted on an anonymous basis, meaning the officials involved could not be identified by name in news stories.

“Has it struck anyone as odd to [hold] a briefing about open government and transparency on background?” one journalist asked during the session. “Why is that necessary?”

“Just so you understand this, we have to explain why officials are speaking anonymously,” a flabbergasted reporter said. “To write a story talking about U.S. officials anonymously plugging an Obama initiative for open government just – it makes – I’m sorry.”