[IMFSA] Lessons learnt… ANC deputy president responds

It may have taken a week, but finally the stunned silence it seems most of our leaders descended into has been broken. ANC deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe gave a strong message to foreign and local journalists and communicators this morning, Thursday, 22 May 2008, at the International Media Forum in Johannesburg, not just condemning the attacks – as have the dozens of press releases landing in my inbox over the last two days from every organisation out there – but acknowledging the barbarism, the ugliness and threat to our democratic society and admitting that police did not contain a situation that should have been contained before it spread to a crisis of international importance which caused so many deaths and displacement of thousands, damaging our country’s reputation internationally as a stable democracy.

As foreign journalists highlight, their biggest frustration is the lack of response from government communicators, so Motlanthe finally said what needed to be said. That is what this conference is all about: acknowledge and respond. That is all that is sometimes required to contain a crisis from going from a local incident to an international crisis. The media need to tell the stories – the perspectives that are generated from those stories are as much up to the response from communicators at the gates of business, government and civil society, as the media distributing those stories.

As CNN’s Kim Norgaard, Africa bureau chief, said on Africa: “Of course we have a responsibility not to tell a distorted story of Africa. We delight in breaking stereotypes.” He had a few suggestions to communicators for getting their message across:

1. Look at the current news climate. Like all companies, we don’t have unlimited resources. If the timing is wrong you won’t be able to tell it yet.
2. What is the biggest story you are trying to tell and why would anyone sitting in London be interested? What is the relevance? Take a conference on energy renewal – he’s not interested in men in suits sitting around, but the people advantaged by new inventions, processes.
3. What media should you target? Newspapers, TV, radio, etc, all have different needs.
4. Point for government spokes in particular: BE AVAILABLE!

5. Build relations with key reporters covering your industry. Contact them, email them. Don’t be afraid to pitch them stories. They make take a while to respond, but as Norgaard says, “some of my favourite stories come from people like you (communicators) who have given them to us.”