No harm in Manyi reviewing state's R1bn ad spend

Perhaps it’s time the public put on its thinking cap and ask: what has the media got to lose if chief government spokesperson Jimmy Manyi pulls the plug on the government’s R1 billion advertising spend?

It would mean huge losses for the private shareholders of many companies.

We must understand that the government is not obliged to advertise in the print media or anywhere else for that matter. As to where it chooses to place its money will be the decision of the people entrusted with that responsibility.

It’s a pity the media has created the misleading perception that the government is bound to advertise through it. This is a lie. In fact, it is a blatant distortion of the facts.

I believe that newspapers editors deal with companies that threaten to pull their advertising from their media every day of their lives. It is unfortunate that they may not publish such stories in the interest of not burning bridges with such companies.

But it is a fact that many companies will not place adverts in newspapers that do not give them favourable coverage, indulge them in a “gentleman’s agreement” or transaction where parties agree to somewhat grease each other.

We must remember that the business of the media is not news but making huge profits.

A misleading perception is that it is good for government to place adverts in the print media.

Well, someone should enlighten us to what the government has gained by blowing R1 billion a year on print advertising except for cluttered ads with the faces of ministers, MECs and mayors.

There should be one individual somewhere who should ask: why has this money not been used to speak directly to the people or build them schools, clinics or houses?

In a developmental state you can achieve a lot with R1 billion.

In fact, it can be claimed that placing recruitment ads and other government advertorials in the media just does not help it in any way achieve its objectives. Instead the government should explore ways to directly communicate with people.

If people seek employment in government, there is every reason to believe that they should go directly to government or its channels to find such opportunities.

If you desire to be employed at a newspaper, you will inquire with the paper itself about vacancies. So why has government been wasting money?

The fact is that the government is not committing any sin by taking out the “middle man”.

The media has gone out of its way to make it look like Manyi has committed treason by suggesting the government should re-evaluate where it places its advertising.

It’s true that the media industry has made monumental profits from government ad spend. In any language, R1 billion a year is not small change. Its withdrawal will definitely affect the salaries of journalists and editors.

The question is: how has this money helped people to appreciate government service delivery? Can we truly claim that the fact that government has invested so much of its resources in print media, for instance, has helped enlighten people to understand its plans and implementation programmes? How many people, for instance, have been helped by the media coverage to be able to recite their constitutional rights?

We have yet to find a single individual in society who can claim they have gained better insight into how the government works or understands how to make a minister or councillor accountable through reading print media.

All that people read about in the media is stories of corruption, wasteful expenditure, greed and selfishness which results in the alleged “service-delivery protests”. Much as this is true, there are a lot of good stories that nobody gets to hear or read. And this is a pity.

It is not true that it is the responsibility of the government to place ads in print media. Much as the media is free to choose how it covers government news, the government should be free to decide how it engages the media to achieve its own objectives. And there are men who have been especially employed to do that like Manyi.

It is a simple matter, this.

People in the 1970s and 1980s who read print remember the extensive coverage the apartheid parliament received from the media, especially newspapers.

Papers would generally allocate a special number of pages to “parliamentary news, debates and discussion”.

But this suddenly stopped with the advent of a “people’s government”. Much as there are parliamentary correspondents based in Cape Town, very few of them have dedicated pages to articulate or cover developments in the National Assembly.

Some people have always been curious to understand the motive for this.

We would all agree that at the advent of a new democracy, it would be of paramount importance for newspapers to let people know how their government operates. This has not happened.

So, it should be the duty of officials like Manyi to explore possibilities to make it easier for government to reach its target market or get its message across. The duty of the government is to provide information and knowledge to citizens. And to achieve this, it does not have to pour money into the coffers of private shareholders.

Perhaps it is important to stress that the government has done the best it can for the media in this country, which is create an enabling environment for it to conduct its business. Anything beyond is expecting the impossible.

The print news business is owned by the private sector. It should not be difficult for the brilliant minds in management to come up with an alternative to losing R1 billion from the government.

I guess it’s time for them to show they can think better and deeper than lazy government officials.

It truly will be interesting to see how this matter ends. But the government is not obliged to advertise in the print media and the editors and journalists must stop holding a gun to its head and allow its officials to be creative and try new things.

After all, the government cannot continue to spend R1 billion in the same way and expect to get different results. It’s time that men like Manyi were left alone to do their jobs and thus earn their money.