In the olden days, the press secretary was the Cabinet official responsible for dealing with the press. There was no presidential spokesman… it was just the press secretary.

Usually, the position was held by a seasoned former journalist. This is because the position calls for a notable professional experience as a newsman and also a strong relationship with the working press.

The press secretary must be able to anticipate the needs of newsmen working against a deadline. He must know what is news and is able to present the day’s stories in a way that would be clearly understood and attract maximum attention from reporters, editors and readers.

As a journalist, having a former colleague as press secretary also means there is this important element of trust… no bum steers. He will not, for instance, claim Duterte will sit between Obama and Ban Ki Moon even if he is not sure it will happen… it didn’t. Mutual respect between news source and reporter is essential.

Things are admittedly more complicated now. The press is still there, broadcast media, and now the most difficult of all, social media. There are more people speaking on behalf of the president. Aside from the communications secretary and presidential spokesman, the presidential legal counsel just can’t help himself when a microphone is before him.

It is a mess. In the latest flap on Obama, all three people had something to say plus the Labor and Tourism secretaries too. All were eager to do damage control and only exacerbated things.

For example, one of them said, Obama is a lame duck president anyway. Come on… Secretary Bello… honestly… someone as senior and experienced in government as you are should know better.

Yet, not one of them had the guts to counsel the president to be more circumspect with his language and choose his words well because words matter. When the sh-t hits the fan as it always does, they blame biased media for their shortcomings.

From my over 40 years in the communications business working from the media and client sides, it is clear to me the guys charged with the presidential communications function in the previous and current administrations have much to learn.

The job is not about pleasing the president. It is about informing the public and in so doing, making them understand the issues, win support for the president and help build or at the very least, preserve his political capital. The most difficult part of their job is to tell the president he is wrong to say this or that or take that action rather than an alternative.

The communications person must always put his job on the line… must not be afraid to lose it in the process of telling the president how to approach an issue or a problem. This is true in the public service as it is in the private sector.

I know from experience it is not an easy task. A comms person is always surrounded by high level sycophants with Cabinet or vice president ranks. They are usually more inclined to merely please the boss… tell him what he wants to hear, not what he must hear.

But unless the comms person is able to present the public view may not be popular with top management, he will be a miserable failure in his job. This is why it is important that the person who has the communication responsibility be adequately experienced and brave.

It is no longer sufficient to have once been a reporter, an editor or a celebrity news reader on television. A good comms person must be well versed in the business of his boss and, most difficult of all for many who crave for the limelight, must be prepared to work from the sidelines.

The comms person must also be a strategic thinker. He must be many steps ahead of media and his boss. He must carefully plan the public exposure of his boss, specially as in the case of President Duterte, he is known to say things better left unsaid or said more politely.

A good example is that ill-conceived departure ceremony in Davao as the president was about to board the plane for Laos. Knowing Duterte, it was obviously risky to open it up for questions… that should have been made clear to him beforehand because it is his first diplomatic mission and they cannot afford any mistake.

You don’t have to be a communications specialist to know how easy it is to bait the president into saying something that could end up in a cringe worthy headline. Just ask him about human rights.

The president’s supporters complain media is biased against him… they quote him out of context and all that. The thing is… media will always be media and it is not the media’s job to babysit the president. Media’s only job is to report what he says, expletives and all, with no regard to consequences.

It is the job of the president and his communications handlers to make sure he cannot be misquoted. Looking at the transcript of that controversial press conference, the president has unfortunately left himself wide open to misinterpretation. The president should speak in complete sentences. It is the broken ones that can be abused… taken out of context.

There are also too many people claiming to speak for him. The president should limit the number of those speaking for him to one. The comms secretary should be working from behind the scene on the comms strategy and infrastructure. And Panelo should be banned from speaking to media because he just makes things worse.

Maybe their big problem is that none of the communications people have any real experience in PR or the handling of crisis communications. The job of explaining the president to the public is a never ending crisis communication job and whoever is responsible for it must be experienced and totally strategic in his thinking.

One last advice: they should all get a good night’s sleep. They need to be able to think clearly each day. They are wearing themselves out too fast and the job won’t be over until 2022. They have a very difficult and very challenging job. The fate of the President, indeed of the country may well be in their hands.

Apologies for mistakes are great, but let’s not make that a habit. Get things right the first time. Let’s be strategic in everything said or done. Let the president realize he is no longer mayor of Davao but president of the Republic of the Philippines.

So much more is expected of him. The more of our people he can get behind him, the better chance we have of seeing real and desirable change happen during his watch. We want to be proud of our president and we hope he will give us new reasons everyday why we should be.

Source: https://www.philstar.com/business/2016/09/12/1622743/presidential-miscommunications-office