THE Government Communication and Information Service is trying to live up to its name. It launched its first Communicator’s Handbook recently, and a quick perusal over a few dops showed the manne from the Dorsbult Bar why our leaders and our leader writers are so often at odds. The handbook advises spin doctors to adopt a four-pronged approach: identify the target audience, examine the media’s role, identify who is to communicate and, we kid you not, identify the ”key massage”.
In addition to having about 200 spelling errors, the Handbook goes a long way to explaining why the government is not getting its ”massage” across: it does not know who the people in the media are, or where to find them. A few examples: the Mail & Guardian’s news editor is someone called Pela Thornycraft (a rather apt description of the hack’s job), though no one of that name works at the M&G; Business Day editor Peter Bruce has been demoted and redeployed as news editor of the Financial Mail; TV presenter Jeremy Maggs has been promoted to editor of the Citizen (albeit with a name change to ”Meggs”) and the SABC’s Mathata Tsedu is on an undercover spying mission as news editor at the Star in ”Johannesbug”.
The inside track
But other government departments seem to have a better understanding of what is required to get the job done. A media release from the minister of correctional services shows that what used to be known as the prisons department is setting a thief to catch a thief, as it were. It announces that Jenny Schreiner, who has a masters in sociology, has been appointed to the post of Chief Deputy Commissioner: Functional Services. As a detainee under the previous government, Schreiner has the inside track on her new job.
Caught in the Act
By announcing that Northern Province will henceforth be known as Limpopo and that several dorpies’ names will also change it appears the province’s leaders have crossed their Rubicon without having reached it, so to speak.
Having mentioned the decision last week Oom Krisjan was surprised to hear, from the South African Geographical Names Council (SAGNC), that provincial governments have no legal power to change names of towns, dams, rivers and so on. According to Act 118 of 1998 (the statute book is kept under the bar counter), any proposed name changes must be submitted to the council, which can then submit a recommendation to the Ministry of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology for approval. The minister is the only one with the power to approve a name, and he must publish his decision in the Government Gazette.
The SAGNC does not have jurisdiction over names of provinces, but these have to be submitted to Parliament for amendment to the Constitution. Since the SAGNC has not yet heard from Polokwane (nÃ