The practice of placing public communications ‘specialists/ experts’ – or whatever other contemporary titles attach themselves to such personages – in almost every state agency, is reflective of government’s unceasing ‘circling of the wagons’ around the preparation and dissemination of information for public consumption. As a matter of course, however, the buck insofar as the official dissemination is concerned, rarely if ever stops with these bureaucrats. The burden of responsibility lies with functionaries, perhaps Ministers or other political intermediaries held to be versed in the highly valued political art of spin-doctoring.
And why not! Managing the sentiment which the message is intended to communicate is a critical aspect of presenting the governance ethos to audiences in a manner most likely to secure public approval or, at worst, public acceptance…or at least so the political overlords think. Leaving the end product to the mere bureaucrat, some public information specialist whose pay grade falls below the political bottom line is considered to be far too great a political risk to take.
The dichotomy between the high-sounding official pronouncements on the virtues of the free flow of information, on the one hand, and on the other, the studied official sculpting of messages prior to their being placed in the public domain, on the other, are practices to which we have grown sufficiently accustomed to pay only minimal attention to what amounts to little more than an elaborate charade. Here in Guyana the way in which the state-run media are managed exemplifies this absurdity in a manner that has become embarrassingly transparent. The role of the state media never really undergoes change, nor, for that matter, does real media freedom feature too prominently on their agenda. The change in whom they serve, which political master, that is, amounts to the only substantive change. That is the nature of the Kafkaesque environment in which we dwell and in which the more things change the more they remain the same. It is a sobering thing that those who, at one time or another, hold positions of ‘authority’ within sections of the state media, actually work within a reality of what one might call political revolving doors, their authority coming to a shuddering halt, or otherwise, depending on the outcomes of the electoral polls.
The lesser functionaries in the pecking order too, must make choices. They must either undergo swift transformations in their ‘political loyalties’ or else, head for the door. There are no permanent right and wrong sides here. The choices/ transformations which, all too frequently have bread and butter implications, are made quietly, even unobtrusively. Over time the casualties have learnt to cultivate a kind of philosophical understanding that it is what it is.
There are other considerations here too. Like the oft proven fact that the controls held by the government in power affords it a generous measure of corresponding control over aspects of the operating lives of the privately-owned media. The history of the use of the powerful weapon of state advertising by separate political administrations, at separate times, to torpedo the revenues of private media houses is not so many years behind us that we cannot recall them clearly. These, in their essence, are among the most pointed and potent of the weapons that repose in the armoury of the government in office. They are ever present and once push comes to shove those who rule never hesitate to press them into service. It is, quite simply, a matter of the ends justifying the means.
There is, as of now, no real indication that the prevailing status quo will change. The reality remains extant in the continued political ring-fencing of the state media and a corresponding control over the flow of official information between the state and the media. The priority here has to do with keeping the media, state-owned or otherwise, ‘in check.’ Nor is there, one feels, any indication that the worm is about to turn any time soon.
Governments’ understanding of media, how they work and what does or does not constitute media freedom is set in stone around what lies within the sphere of their political interest…nothing more. Nothing, in essence, really ever changes. The functionaries that take to the helm and those that ‘dress down’ as dictated by the vicissitudes of change in political administrations are, in every instance, less concerned with considerations of media freedom and to a far greater extent with media control. Here in Guyana, whomsoever is assigned political responsibility for matters relating to media, including the operating behaviour of media house has only one really critical responsibility…ensuring that such information as is disseminated through the media conforms to the dictates that are embedded in their own policy positions and that such information as is disseminated elicits the best possible responses.
To those who rule nothing else is of any real importance.
