All is not gold that glitters
After reading Kwame Asare Boadu’s piece, “So Close and Yet So Far – Lessons from the Flagstaff House”, that appeared in the Daily Graphic of Monday, April 24, 2017, I could only sympathise with Kwame and his colleagues who served on the press corps of the President in the last administration.
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I can only assume that the journalists who worked at the Flagstaff House with Mr Boadu had similar experiences while they served at the seat of government, unless any one of them comes out to challenge or deny what Kwame wrote.
Until we see a denial in print, we can conclude that what Mr Boadu wrote was a resumé of his and the others’ three-year stint at the Government House.
My first reaction after reading the article was to call a top journalist at the Daily Graphic to find out if he was aware of what their correspondent at the Flagstaff House was going through.
From his response, he was not aware of any problem but added that the story would have been more credible if it had been written during his tour of duty.
I did not agree with him. I told him it would have been suicidal if Mr Boadu had written such an article before he exited the Flagstaff House. I am sure the Presidency would have asked for his immediate withdrawal and ordered for a replacement.
Who would have ever thought that journalists working at the Flagstaff House would have experienced such a frustrating time. Nobody would believe that they were not lying on beds of roses, always in the company of the President, travelling far and near with the first gentleman of the state, including travelling overseas by air.
One would even think that other journalists would feel jealous and envy their colleagues who report on the activities of Mr President.
My experience
As a journalist with more than 40 years’ experience and who once reported for the Daily Graphic from the Castle during the Acheampong regime and also served as a press secretary in the People’s National Party (PNP) administration of the late Dr Hilla Limann, I think I am qualified to make some few comments and observations.
I believe the problem in the recent past, especially in the Fourth Republic, is that various governments that have come up have rarely used the services of experienced and tested journalists in their own press secretariats.
Most of those engaged for press duties at the seat of government are usually not journalists.
If we look at what is happening in political parties, those handling their media matters or those they call communicators are not trained journalists. I can probably single out Richmond Keelson of the Progressive People’s Party (PPP), who once edited The Independent as probably the only journalist on the political landscape.
What can one expect when journalists assigned to the Flagstaff Staff have to deal with non-journalists in charge of media relations at the seat of government?
First, the so-called communicators would look down on the journalists sent to cover the activities of the President.
Secondly, there can never be any good rapport between the journalists and those handling government communication. That is why the government communicators would always draw a wedge between the President and the journalists, making it impossible for the journalists to have access to the President. It is for the same reasons that the communicators would never encourage the President to grant press interviews to those who follow him everywhere to report on his activities.
Courting the media
However, for any President to enjoy good publicity from the press and ensure free flow of information from the Presidency, it is always important for him to court the friendship of the journalists who are with him everyday and cover his activities, not only in Ghana but outside.
It will go to the credit of any President if he knows all the journalists in the presidential press corps by their names and once in a while calls them by their first names. The President should let the journalists feel that he cares about them by showing affection and taking personal interest in their welfare.
That is the surest way of building a proper camaraderie between the President and those who are so close to him and move with him anywhere he goes.
It is certainly dangerous to allow the employees who are handling the media matters of the President to come between him and the journalists from outside. There is nothing the journalists can do if this is the situation but their reports will never tell the whole and proper story.
Mr Boadu mentioned that they only enjoyed working at the Flagstaff House when Ben Dotse Malor was brought in from his duty post at the United Nations by President Mahama to be his press secretary.
Surely, Ben was acting professionally and saw the journalists as his colleagues who were there to help him to succeed and to promote the President. However as it turned out, Ben was not allowed by the powerful communicators at the Flagstaff House to do his work. They were there to do politics that would benefit them alone and certainly saw Mr Malor as an intruder and a stranger who did not belong.
I still remember the good rapport journalists in Tamale had with the late Col Robert Kunta Zumah when he was the Regional Commissioner for the Northern Region in the Acheampong (NRC) regime.
Journalists in the regions normally cover the activities of the regional political head first and foremost. But as was and probably is usually the case, journalists in the regions cannot be said to in the good books of the regional administration staff who follow the regional minister or commissioner.
However, Col Zumah was not somebody who would like those in the regional administration to spoil his work for him. He made sure the journalists were well taken care of and he himself would find out from the journalists if they were comfortable.
There was an occasion when we travelled to Zabzugu with Col Zumah. It was a long journey on a very rough road. The regional administration gave us the journalists a very rickety bus. Col Zumah got to Zabzugu more than an hour before we got there.
He was to address the local people on some government policy. The people had gathered at a town park waiting for the message. The staff from the regional administration wanted the regional commissioner to go and address the people, but he would not move from the classroom where he was resting.
He asked his people who would report on what he would say if the journalists were not there. He waited till we got to Zabzugu, and when he saw the bus we travelled on he warned his people never to give us such a bus any time we travelled with him.
Col Zumah made us have our lunch before he went to address the people of Zabzugu. He even surprised his administrators by asking the journalists to take the lead to serve themselves before he and his team went to serve themselves.
It was no wonder Col Zumah used to boast that he came to Tamale as a major and was leaving as a colonel. He said it was due to the excellent reports of the journalists which caught the attention of his bosses at the Castle.
I cannot end this piece without recalling the good relationship between those of us who were in charge of the press secretariat at the Castle when Dr Limann was the President and the journalists sent to the Castle to cover the activities of the President.
We were three press secretaries at the Castle at the time with the late Mr Sam Quaicoe, who came from the Ghana News Agency (GNA) as the Chief.
The third person was Mr M.M. Adam who came from the Pioneer in Kumasi.
The three of us were properly interviewed. It was not just job for the boys. The Chairman of the interview panel was Mr Kofi Batsa, who was the Chairman of the Publicity Committee of the PNP. The interview was at Mr Batsa’s office at Astab Books at Osu.
I might have annoyed Mr Batsa when I told him that I wanted to be a career journalist and was not interested in any political appointment. Somehow, he was a close friend of my brother, the late Mr Omar El-Alawa, a former City Engineer for Accra. Mr Batsa reported my conduct to my brother who called me and asked me to go and apologise. I did just that and got the job.
Since the three of us were professionals, we had a very good rapport with journalists who were sent to the Castle. We were like brothers and sisters and we gave them every opportunity to perform well. I still remember always moving around with Mr Mawusi Afele, who was a young journalist from GNA. We became good friends and it did not surprise me that years later he became the General Manager of GNA.
When it comes to media matters, I would advise the governments to appoint true professionals to man their press secretariats. It is the only way to build a strong bridge between the seat of government and the general public since the press secretariat and the press corps will always be working in tandem with each other.
The success or otherwise of any government depends on getting a reliable press that enjoys the confidence of the press secretariat and can, therefore, accurately report on government activities.