THE MILLS ADMINISTRATION MUST TREASURE EVEN ITS SEVEREST CRITICS IN THE MEDIA!

It is said that those who manage the public image of the new Mills administration have been busy patting themselves on the head lately – because there were no major slip-ups during the presidential press conference held at the Osu Castle on Tuesday, 14th April 2009. If, however, it is true that the absence from that press conference of a number of newspapers like The Independent, The Daily Guide, The Statesman, The Ghanaian Observer, and The New Crusading Guide, was not accidental but deliberate, as is being alleged in certain quarters, then those officials have done a great deal of damage to the image of their new administration.

Tolerance of dissenting views is a sign of political maturity – even when those dissenting views are intended to mislead the public. An example of such mischief was the misleading claim in one of the previous editions of The Statesman that the president had traveled to the Eastern Region in a longish convoy – when in actual fact he had ventured nowhere near the Eastern Region, but had been in Accra the whole of that day. As it happens, he had only gone to church and returned home again after that on the day in question (in his usual minimalist convoy). The discerning public (those who aren’t the “My-party-my-tribe-right-or-wrong” myrmidon-types whose blind support eventually destroys political parties when they win power, i.e.) can make its own judgment about such reportage – and decide the level of credibility to accord newspapers of that ilk, for themselves.

However, those who manage the public image of the new administration, must, of necessity, always keep their doors open to all Ghanaian media houses without exception.
If the new masters of the universe at the Osu Castle care to ask members of the previous administration who are honest enough to admit the truth, they will tell them that looking back, one of the biggest mistakes they made, was paying too much attention to the views of the sycophantic media praise-singers they spent zillions cultivating. Those in charge of media relations at the presidency must keep their lines of communication open to all Ghana’s print and electronic media outlets – particularly those which they think are on the side of the opposition.

It is the best way to gauge the prevailing national mood at any given point in time during their tenure. Keeping their lines of communication open to all media houses will also enable them provide biased hacks with the correct information that will make it hard for them to continue misleading the public in the blatant fashion some of them have now adopted. Subtlety, not showing unfriendly media-types where power lies, by excluding them from the Osu Castle (and elsewhere that the great and the good congregate), ought to be the guiding principle in the battle to win the hearts and minds of the Ghanaian public. It is no good adopting the Ostrich-approach in handling today’s media.

In any case, in the final analysis, the best way to shame those who peddle falsehood in the media, is for our new leaders to govern our country in a fair and transparent manner – and for them to rule this nation as honest and competent stewards of the public purse above all. Against that, no amount of sophism on the part of the mischief-makers in the media (especially those who sold their consciences to our previous rulers and now wish to see their return to power again by any means necessary, including deploying falsehood as a political weapon) can move the ordinary Ghanaians who voted for regime-change in the December 2008 elections. In that regard, the president was wise in making it clear to the nation that all those in the previous regime who abused the trust Ghanaians placed in them whiles in office will be held to account. He is likely to retain the trust of those who voted for change if that happens – even if he is unable to change their personal circumstances very much within his four-year tenure.

The men and women surrounding the president must never forget the wise old Ghanaian saying: “No condition is permanent.” If those of them responsible for managing the public image of the administration of a leader, who says he wants to be a president of all Ghanaians, want to avoid being condemned in future for humbug and hubris, they must revise their notes quickly – and ensure that on subsequent occasions they invite all the media houses they failed to invite to cover the president’s maiden press conference at the Osu Castle. If they do not want to make the same kinds of avoidable mistakes their predecessors made whiles in power (when they elected to court a section of the media assiduously – whiles subtly persecuting those of us who criticized them regularly), then they must learn to treasure even their severest critics in the media. A word to the wise…