Why does Jimmy Manyi want my job?

June 23rd, 2011

WHY is Jimmy Manyi trying to steal my job? He is government spokesman, but from everything he says it is clear he really wants to be a media critic. That’s my job. Since he is trying to do my job, I will have a shot at thinking about what I would do if I had his.
First, I would stop being a media critic, because that is no way to build working relationships with journalists. You don’t need a degree in psychology to know that if you slag people off all the time, tell them their work is rubbish and they are no more than slaves to their greedy profit-seeking bosses, that you can’t expect them to treat you nicely.
I would revamp the government magazine, Vuk’uzenzela, as Manyi is proposing. It is a much better idea to publish it as a tabloid and push up circulation. But I would make it clear that this is a government newsletter, designed to give people — particularly those without easy access to printed media — the information they need, which they don’t get through the commercial media. Stuff like how to access a pension, grant or housing subsidy.
I would make a ruling that no ministers’ faces can appear in the publication. The last thing people want is to see those depressing official photographs that make every minister look like the ghost of a soulless 19th- century technocrat. I would put in pictures of people accessing their pensions, grants and housing subsidies and enjoying them.
I would drop the idea to publish more regularly, as the huge costs can be better spent. Besides, the government could never effectively distribute a newspaper quickly around the country and in rural areas, where it is most needed. Not even Independent Newspapers can do that — and it is its business.
I would continue to put most of my efforts into winning the mainstream media over to giving the government better coverage. I would say I want higher-quality coverage rather than friendlier. Realising that whatever the government publishes will never influence as many people as the Daily Sun, or as many business people as Business Day, I would direct my attentions there — no matter how much they irritated and frustrated me. I would find my friends there, and work with them, and identify my enemies, and work extra hard with them.
Like Manyi, I would centralise the purchase of advertising space to try to save money, but I would give the task to a commercial firm, or an independent agency at arm’s length from my department, with instructions only to make the advertising more cost- effective. I know that if I tried to let political decisions affect where adverts were placed, or if I tried to favour my friends, then I would be in danger of breaking the law that governs how one uses public funds. Besides, if I put government advertising only in friendly publications, I won’t get my message across very widely, will I?
Knowing the dangers of centralisation, I would leave departments to do their own marketing — but suggest some guidelines. Again, no photos of ministers bigger than a postage stamp. No ego publishing, by which I mean those adverts that are there only to punt the minister. And, for heaven’s sake, get some serious advertising designers and copywriters in.
I would tell every member of the government that I am not their communicator. Everyone in the government is a communicator, and my job would be just to facilitate, advise, assist and direct — but each minister, each department, each sector of the government, has to do it for themselves.
I would stop saying that my job is to tell people what the government is doing, but start arguing that a government communicator’s job is to facilitate and enable participative democracy by encouraging every government official to engage in two-way dialogue with their publics. I would strive to get ministers to listen as well as talk, to have a conversation with citizens, rather than lecture them. My job would be to empower citizens with information.
Oh, I would also join the fight against the “secrecy bill”, knowing that it will make the job I just described much harder.

• Harber is Caxton Professor of Journalism at Wits University. Manyi is chief government spokesman. Now you know why.

This column first appeared in Business Day, June 22, 2011

Entry Filed under: Anton Harber, Journalism, Media regulation