Governance and Information Management
Information management is a serious business that must be handled by true professionals if success is to be achieved in any corporate entity.
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Apart from central government, other arms of government and agencies need a section that handles information which is more popularly known as public relations. Every entity, whether political, business or otherwise, would like the public to know what is being done in the interest of the public.
Government business is public service. No government can win the sympathy of those who voted it into power unless it is able to let the people know what it is doing that is good governance.
Which is why the minister of information is a key member of government and anybody who serves in that capacity is also a Cabinet member.
This then goes down to other departments and agencies of government. Each one of them has a section that also takes care of information and how to manage it so as to carry the public along.
Apart from government and its agencies and departments, there is no corporate entity that does not have any section that is in charge of information. That is why all the banks, the military and indeed other security agencies such as the police, immigration, prisons and so on and so forth all have information sections.
These departments that handle information may go by different names. They are variously called public relations, corporate affairs, communications department or any such names that cannot be divorced from information.
Information management as serious business
It is because the government and its agencies or departments anywhere and other corporate bodies believe in the importance of free flow of information to its publics that information management is taken so seriously everywhere.
Under normal circumstances, those who are put in charge of this important section to, as it were, properly manage the information of government, its agencies and departments or other corporate bodies must be people adequately and properly trained to handle such information and to release any such information to the public as and when the need arises.
I am compelled to write this piece as a follow-up to my last week’s, following the revelation by one of the members of the presidential corps during the last administration, Mr Kwame Asare Boadu, a Daily Graphic reporter, that they had a frustrating time during the three years he and his colleagues served at the Flagstaff House.
Readers would recall that I came out bluntly to say that a situation where communicators at the Presidency saw themselves as rivals to correspondents sent by their media organisations to cover the activities of the President would not allow the journalists to perform at their optimum best.
Whoever thinks the communicators would be looking for a way for the journalists to succeed so that they can also be praised for doing a good job to help the President enjoy good publicity is not almost with the times.
Partisanship in politics has so blinded the communicators so much that what they are thinking is to project themselves and to be seen as very powerful, but not to work hand-in-hand with the journalists from outside to promote the good deeds of government.
Importance of training
We are having these problems because since the advent of the Fourth Republic, those employed or engaged to manage government information are not trained for the job. The communicators are party people who see themselves as politicians who are working at the Presidency as their reward for helping their party win power.
We are in this situation because the communicators also see themselves as journalists or people who can communicate and express themselves very well in English. Certainly they are well educated, but can that make them believe they can do the work of the journalist?
I believe nobody who has not trained as a journalist can do the work of a journalist no matter the level of his education. He may be able to rap in good English when given the microphone or string words together and come out with a good article qualified to be published in any newspaper, but that can never make such a person a journalist.
I know that even among journalists, we have a problem as to who a journalist is. For years, we have been arguing as to who qualifies to be a journalist. Is ours a profession or a trade? This has been a question for which we don’t appear to have any ready-made answer.
Can anybody call himself or herself a lawyer or a doctor without passing through a law school or a medical school? A law clerk of many years standing can never call himself a lawyer and neither can a nurse or laboratory technician call himself a doctor without swearing the Hippocratic Oath.
However in our case, somebody can become a journalist without going to a journalism school by learning on the job. He may be a clerk in a newspaper office who may have a flair for writing. He can start as a cub reporter who can rise to the highest level in the profession.
Likewise, we have people who are fluent in English appearing on radio or television programmes. Some of them who are interested in becoming broadcasters can be invited to a broadcasting house or radio station and eventually become broadcast journalists without seeing the four walls of a journalism school.
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Today, we have communicators working for political parties from the national to the constituency levels. Most of them can rattle the English language and many times see themselves even as journalists.
These are the people who, once their parties come to power, are drafted to the seat of power to be in charge of communication. Invariably, they see themselves performing the duties of journalists and, therefore, look down on the journalists sent to the government house to report on activities of the President.
Older Ghanaians will agree with me that successive governments since independence have rarely appointed journalists as ministers of information. I think there is the notion that journalists don’t make good information ministers. Just as there is the strong belief that doctors do not make good ministers of health or soldiers good ministers of defence.
In the same vein, journalists are rarely used as press secretaries, especially in the Fourth Republic. Presidents have found it more convenient to use trusted and loyal associates to be their press secretaries.
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However, I know where journalists have been used by governments in their information set-up, the results have been superb. I know Elizabeth Ohene was such a huge success when she served as Minister in charge of Media Relations during the administration of John Agyekum Kufuor.
It was during the same period that Andrew Awuni, who used to be with the Ghana News Agency, was also the Press Secretary at the Castle.
The press had a field day as they felt at home working hand-in-hand with “grandma” Ohene and Awuni to report on government activities from the Castle.
I know it was the same situation that the press had when the late Sam Quaicoe, myself and MM Adam manned the Press Secretariat during the Limann administration during the Third Republic.
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I still remember the time of Col Festus Addae, a professional broadcaster and journalist who handled press matters during the National Redemption Council (NRC) regime headed by Col Kutu Acheampong.
Our own Elvis Aryeh did not do badly when he was appointed Press Secretary during the early days of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC). His presence at Gondar Barracks made journalists sent to cover the activities of the junta really feel at home. The good reports they sent through their newspapers made the regime somehow popular.
The last of the great press secretaries was the venerable Vincent Assiseh, a broadcaster par excellence, who performed so creditably as a Press Secretary in the early days of the National Democratic Congress (NDC). His interpersonal relationship with the journalists who worked at the Castle ensured a free flow of information from the Castle and, therefore, good publicity for the NDC under the leadership of J. J. Rawlings.
There is a lot future governments can gain if they hire professional journalists to manage the information that will flow from the seat of government. They can work with the communicators but once the professionals are in charge, government can expect and enjoy good publicity.