Public relations, government and the media

Had someone asked me to compile a list of things I expected to miss while I was in Sierra Leone, it likely wouldn't have been an especially short one, with the names of loved ones and favourite restaurants probably taking up much of the space. New music, new movies, and the start of baseball season would surely have made the cut. But PR? That I never could have predicted.

My attitude has long been elitist when it comes to the whole industry of public relations. These departments were largely staffed, in my opinion, by sellouts that had lost their love of journalism's pure form, succumbing to the allure of a higher salary and selling their souls as spin-masters for companies with something to hide. There was a high-level conspiracy theorist malevolence about it all, and I prayed I'd never stray so far from my puritanical ideals.

Well, leave it to Sierra Leone to once again provide me a more nuanced perspective. The public relations mechanisms in this country are badly underdeveloped and, shockingly, I am actually lamenting that fact.

This past week, my colleague Sheik and I began working on a story about a UNESCO report regarding global progress in attaining the Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education. Since Sheik is currently doing his internship for the Mass Communications program at Fourah Bay College with Kalleone, he seems to be the journalist I spend the most time with, since he's the most available.

Anyway, it was clear pretty quickly that this wouldn't be an easy story, as it involved a fair bit of a research to filter a complex, multi-faceted issue down to a single article. It's not the type of story that gets covered here often and we were the only media source I know of that reported on it, owing to the presence of my Cord email on a UNESCO mailing list that I didn't even know existed.

Owing to the less conventional nature of this story, it took a long time. But the most difficult part of it all was definitely securing interviews. The politicians here seem to have an inherent distrust of the media, which I suppose exists to some degree in most societies, but like many things with this experience, it's more intense in SL.

Though I wouldn't classify this as a remotely controversial story, we received an extensive run-around from leery secretaries in trying to get access to the sources we needed. In some ways, I can understand their misgivings. Based on the question and answer sessions I've witnessed, journalists can certainly be guilty of loaded questions; their opinionated beliefs rarely hide behind a mask of pretence when addressing those in the corridors of power.

In fact, loaded questions are generally the good ones, as they at least include a question. Frequently, journalists say something more like this:

"My question is ... well, actually, it's more of a contribution ... an observation, really ..."

When a question is asked, it is often prefaced by an extensive rant replete with grandiose language and pointed accusations, or at least the implications of accusations. In some ways, it reminds me of my time moderating the WLUSU Presidential Open Forum at Laurier, when so many of the supposed questioners were instead attempting to launch character attacks on the various candidates under the guise of having something to ask.

So, perhaps that's one reason it is so difficult to persuade anyone in a role of some importance to grant you an interview. But having an effective public relations system would definitely help.

Currently, journalists are forced to run around the city to try to set up interviews, as it is way too difficult to convince someone they should grant you an interview in the brief conversations afforded by the phone, and people completely ignore emails unless they somehow profit from answering. The assumption seems to be that no one will be persistent enough to follow up, and it's probably a fairly accurate one.

Of course, taxis around the city cost money, and the poverty that simmers just below the surface of so many of this country's problems - journalistic and otherwise - once again rises to a boil.

And so, journalists spend the brunt of their time attending press conferences because they know they'll at least get statements from ministers and other officials, even if they don't get to pose questions of them directly. Here, too, a functioning PR mechanism could save journalists an immense amount of time and effort.

Press mailing lists are used so sparingly that although I've only been added to two so far (UNICEF and the Special Court), I'm quite convinced that's more than any of my Kalleone colleagues. If Parliament and others would simply send out emails and mass texts with simple things like meeting agendas a day in advance, journalists could schedule their time with vastly increased efficiency rather than wasting it on so many fruitless conferences. Alas, no such culture exists.

Lastly, PR professionals, the good ones at least, can function as a type of interlocutor between the media and government officials that often seem to have a default setting of animosity; when Kevin Crowley arrived at WLU, I found it improved The Cord's relationship with administration because he understood and respected the role of the media more than his predeccesors, and he spoke to his colleagues about the need to give the media access to let us do our job effectively.

I have a feeling no one has ever spoken to most of the officials of the All People's Congress, the sitting government in Sierra Leone, in such terms. After a brief interview with a government official named B.I.S. Konneh, I handed him one of my business cards from JHR.

The part that read "human rights" may as well have been written in blood - it was the only thing he noticed. His face quickly turning to stone, he spat out, "What's your mandate?" I explained, focusing on things like capacity-building in the media and ensuring journalists understand the importance of balance and accuracy in their reporting.

"... But you're not an activist?" he asked, unconvinced.

"No. I'm a journalist."

His expression seemed to respond, "Okay ... I guess that's permissible." I still kind of wonder what would have happened had I said I was an activist, but I imagine the response would've begun with my prompt removal from the building and a subsequent blacklisting.

Instead, we went about laboriously securing more interviews and writing this story. As always, I think it could've been better, but know it was still well above average and I think I'm getting better at accepting that. (Oh, and since I've failed completely to address it, the photo that opens this post is simply the one that ran with the story - a shot of a primary school classroom at an all girl's school.)

Ultimately, my views of Canada's PR system have been moderated by this experience, though the North American incarnation is still a little too well oiled for me to fully trust. But it is starting to look preferable to the Sierra Leonean system, where the rust is only beginning to be chipped away after 15 years of neglect.