When communication isn’t effective

By Heather Carston Editor BACK in the very early 80s when I was a fresh-faced cadet journalist, we were taught there were three rules in good journalism. They were: “Get it right, get it right and, get it right.” I’ve been a big believer in this in the ensuing 40-odd years and it’s something I try and instill in any young journalist whose work comes across my desk. But a lot has changed since the days of the big black Imperial typewriters, coupled with the worn and weighted handles of the bakelite phones, piles of A5 brown paper and pencils –­ and the pre-requisite ashtray. STRAIGHT FROM THE HORSE’S MOUTH Back then, you could ring anyone up who had the information needed for any story you were writing and you could get answers straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. These were the people who were experts in their field, were managing whatever it was you needed information on and whom you relied upon to give you the facts as they knew them to be. So, everyone from town clerks to corporate CEOs, these were the people you spoke with. And, what’s more, in doing so, you knew that one question would inevitably lead to another, which always gave you better, well-balanced copy at the day. Sometimes it meant the person you’d spoken to ended up in the firing line – which is what good, well-balanced and objective journalism should do if applied as the community paper being the consciense of its local community. Importantly, your readers trusted you, because you were talking directly to those who had the answers. 1990S CHANGES And then the 1990s happened and along with it, the rise of communications people. It started in councils, that often had senior staff or elected members who didn’t like managers talking about certain subjects. It then moved to private enterprise and finally, to government circles, premier sports, charities and everything in between. Let me tell you how this works. And how much it makes a decent journalist grind their teeth to twin piles of enamel dust. Journalists of today can’t ring the people who have the information. Oh no. You are extraordinarily lucky if you can even actually speak to someone on any communications team. You have to send by email a set of questions; don’t bother asking to talk to senior public service managers (their private cellphone numbers can be hard to get and are protected like a large West Coast gold nugget); even when you ask specifically because you know a question you need an answer to will have additional questions hanging off it; they don’t let you. Everything must be vetted first. CHINESE WHISPERS The problem here is that because the communications team are not those with the hands on knowledge, the questions we ask don’t come back with the contextually correct answer – and increasingly, not the correct answer at all. It can and does so easily become a series of ‘Chinese whispers’ that it is a wonder we actually get the real facts at all. And also increasingly, what they send back by way of quotable answers isn’t attributable by anyone, not even the person who sent you the email. An absolute failsafe for government departments with their juggernaut comms teams – no finger pointing at a culprit there. Which is ludicrous. If you cannot quote your source – where does that leave quality journalism? In a nutshell… not in a good place. What makes it worse is these days, journalist’s cadetships, learning on the job from those who really know their stuff, has gone. Even tertiary education courses now focus much more on media communications than on actual journalism — and there’s a big difference. There is no accountability in this “communications” mess – and it leaves quality journalism, the ability to unerringly go to the heart of a good story, to help create change at a grass roots level, at serious risk. Occupations evolve, no question of that. But when the fourth estate is in danger of being relegated across the board to the whims of communications teams – who do not know how to communicate properly – democracy itself is in dire straits.