First look at yourselves

Before the campaign for media control gets into high gear (if it hasn't already), maybe government and other organisations should first look at their own internal processes to communicate with journalists and other stakeholders.

The immediacy of news in the digital age means those organisations or individuals who become the subject of a story must have the ability and flexibility to answer queries, defend and justify their positions and actions, immediately.

“Immediate” is the key word here. Whether one likes it or not, almost every member of today's society is a generator of news, a consumer of news, or a participant in news. Opinions, analysis and viewpoints can be expressed quickly and rapidly and, best of all, can be self-published without having to go through the gate-keeping processes of large publishing houses.

What we have now is that super-fast processes of the digital age have supplanted the industrial age models of publishing. That is a major reason why the big publishing companies are struggling to redefine their models and revenue streams.

Not only do the traditional publishing houses have to compete with each other, they have suddenly found themselves having to keep a wary eye on new competition, ranging from individuals blogging, to new-media organisations.

These upstarts are often able to compete on the basis that the barrier to entry is low (no investment in heavy machinery, such as printing presses); they are able to employ part-time, or citizen, reporters; and they are often driven by a passion for their subject matter, rather than just a pure profit motive.

A classic case is US computer maker Apple having to go on the offensive against small sites like macrumours.com, which has continually beaten the established media in reporting new products. Apple lost its court attempts to gag the site, while the large media houses had to follow in the wake of these small sites.

The manner in which large organisations, especially governments, communicate with the digital world and cope with the immediacy of news reporting still lies in the archaic industrial age. They still have “structures” that often turn out to be far more flimsy in dealing with rapid news generation.

Almost everyone with a computer or cellphone can access the news immediately.

Paul Vecchiatto, Cape Town correspondent, ITWeb

An answer to a reporter's formal query has to go through several levels of approval, leaving the final answer arriving late, so losing its relevancy and, more often than not, is nonsense in that it has a lot of words, but nothing substantial to say.

I cannot count the number of times a government department has not answered a query on time. It is absolutely disheartening to write out: “The department of... has not responded at the time of publication.” This phrase implies laziness on the part of the department or on the part of the reporter, but always leaves the sense that the story is not as complete as it should be.

Reputation is important for individuals, companies and governments. Judge Mervin King, in his second report on corporate governance, encouraged companies to communicate effectively with all stakeholders. This resulted in companies and organisations setting up various structures to communicate with shareholders, the media and other stakeholders.

Unfortunately, King did not mention anything about speed and just how important it is in the digital age.

What I have noticed is that the higher up in an organisation the official spokesperson is, the more effective that organisation is at answering media queries quickly and truthfully.

One government space where this is taken to heart and works well is the press briefings that are held almost immediately after Cabinet meetings. Cabinet spokesman Themba Maseko briefs members of the media before a statement has been finalised and is able to answer all queries at his own discretion.

The Internet has democratised news and information. Now almost everyone with a computer or cellphone can access the news immediately. News is information and information is the key to achieving goals, whether they are political, economic, business or personal.

The traditional “those in the know” type of perspective has become watered down to such an extent that potentially almost everyone is able to access the same information at the same time. In fact, this means the ordinary person has almost the exact same information as the decision-maker.

So, instead of trying to wield a big stick and look for regulatory measures to control the media, which is a moving target in this age, government and its departments should rather examine their own internal communications processes and make them relevant, flexible, transparent, timely and responsive.