Essop Pahad has a communications headache. In public he’ll only talk about the media’s problems. In reality, it’s him who has the bigger challenge.
As President Thabo Mbeki’s right-hand man, Pahad is Minister in the Presidency, in charge of government communications. Last week, he told Parliament how all this was going (very well), and assessed the media’s performance (not doing too well).
The media, he said, had misjudged the popular mind when reporting the recent municipal elections. ”There were many predictions, especially among some media analysts and commentators, of a turbulent local election with low levels of participation and reduced support for the incumbent party.”
And yet, Pahad continued, 1,3-million more citizens had cast votes than in the previous local election. He pointedly concluded: ”This divergence between the analysis of the media experts and the opinions of the citizens should be food for thought.”
The minister then painted a contrasting portrait of the authorities being in tune with public sentiment. In this, he told how the government keeps its ears to the ground by means of the ”municipal imbizo programme” — community meetings that get officials (at all levels of the government) to interact with each other and with local people.
Most of his rosy address, however, was less about the government having listened to the citizenry and more about its record in talking at them. It was about delivering information, as distinct from conducting communication.
In this emphasis, he echoed the theme of a previous speech in 2002 in which he told MPs that the public needed to hear ”the facts about the progress” rather than false claims of ”lack of delivery”.
In this context, Pahad spoke with evident pride last week about the new one-million-copy government magazine Vuk’uzenzele in all official languages plus Braille, plus the work of official news agency BuaNews.
He was further pleased to report on a commissioned TV series as well as a photo story in publications ”with wide reach, especially among the poor”, and a series of radio dramas in all languages except English.
There’s nothing wrong with this output: the authorities have a duty to disseminate information. Too much of it, too often, may be puffery. And a lot is too dry to capture audience interest and attention. Nonetheless, the government is legitimately trying to get its message out.
So Pahad’s problem lies not with informing the public. Rather, it’s in regard to a more interactive and dialogic approach. This especially evident over the Jacob Zuma issue.
What’s clear is this: for all the imbizo interaction and the almost R250-million spent on government communications last year, Mbeki’s leadership has not won extensive credit among many people.
Not that Pahad would admit this, but his efforts have failed on the ground in terms of promoting Mbeki as the person who is ultimately responsible for what social improvements have been wrought by the government.
The effect has been that while a huge political constituency still believes in the African National Congress, they continue to prefer Zuma to Mbeki and his allies.
It may therefore well be that the media should get closer to the thinking of the proles and the peasants. But Pahad, too, needs to do the same. He needs to listen to the dissent about Mbeki’s political style. And he should pay more heed to media reports of ”perceptions” about ”lack of delivery”.
Then, having imbibed the import of this, he needs to respond. Not by means of a one-way lecture in party-speak, however. What’s required is concrete dialogue around the tough and controversial issues.
It’s a matter of full and frank communication of government decisions — especially when these decisions go against the Zuma supporters in the ruling party.
Pahad told Parliament that society and the media had been challenged over whether to interpret ”the trial of a prominent member of society as a rupture in our body politic or as an affirmation of the strength of our democracy”.
This is the exact issue now calling out for a communications, as opposed to an information, approach. Specifically, Pahad’s problem is how the government will discuss its decisions if Zuma is acquitted in the coming corruption trial.
Mbeki is not so weakened that he would then reinstate the man as deputy president of the country. (Not to contemplate even those wanting Zuma reappointed to head the Moral Regeneration Movement and the National Aids Council.) But how would the government explain why it rejects demands for this?
It won’t be effective at that time for the minister to point to the media being out of touch. Nor will he and his boss succeed with aloofness, banalities or info that comes from on high.
Instead, genuine interactive communication, using all platforms, will be the most effective way for them to move forward. It’s the only way the current team can hope to persuade its alienated members that Zuma is unsuitable as top leadership material.
For Pahad, this could be the biggest test of his government’s communications efforts, and it requires a different approach to what’s gone before.