The Modi government, perceived to be very cautious in its handling of the media, has drawn up a plan to trumpet its achievements more effectively than the previous regime whose image took a big hit in the last leg of its tenure.
According to government sources, in a unique exercise, selected senior officials from the key economic and infrastructure ministries are set to soon undergo training on how to communicate with the media. The training programme, to be conducted by the information and broadcasting ministry, will focus on effectively disseminating the government’s policy measures and achievements to the media.
The norm in the nation’s capital so far is that the various ministries and departments draw their spokespersons from the Press Information Bureau (PIB). The new model is that a senior official in each ministry ? preferably at the joint secretary level ? will get special training in media management and the PIB official attached to each ministry will likely have a supportive role to him/her. The newly trained officials will virtually be the point persons for interactions with media. This, sources said, would not only make communication to the people through the mass media more effective but also avoid discordance in ideas put out.
The training session will be held on September 22.
The idea is to make sure that the government’s successes and policy milestones are highlighted, as well as to try and prevent news leaks from the ministries.
?Apart from the really big events, whenever a minister takes a policy decision, the file passes through the bureaucratic chain of command before it is finally decided that a press release should be issued on it. However, in the current scheme of things, during the meantime, any reporter with access can break the news. Also, there are concerns on whether a particular story has been played in the right context or not,? an official told FE.
Post-training session, the designated officials from the departments will coordinate with the PIB spokespersons to ensure that the news is issued without jumping bureaucratic hoops, thus reducing the chances of leaks.
The official did not clarify if the officers chosen for the training will also interact with the media directly. However, information and broadcasting minister Prakash Javadekar is likely to conduct part of the training, wherein he will tell bureaucrats about his own experiences with the media as the official spokesman for the BJP.