Ministers on the record
Not all ministers are competent performers either in the media mainstream or on social media
Government ministers and other officials are increasingly before the cameras, a hungry media wanting to hear their views on the events of the day. Ministers themselves are active on platforms such as Twitter. Not all ministers are competent performers either in the media mainstream or on social media, and there are times when they manage to make considerable fools of themselves.
One such incident in recent days has caught the public attention as well as the attention of the media that caught the incident in the first place. Those being interviewed are going to have to get used to the reality of hard questions coming their way, with the expectation that they will be well enough briefed by their support teams before they go on air to handle anything that might come at them. This was obviously not the case with the Punjab Information Minister — note, the Information Minister — Fayazul Hasan Chohan who used abusive language in the course of an interview, clips of which have inevitably gone viral to compound his discomfort.
The minister was on the receiving end of searching questions and abused the anchor doing the asking. The anchor asked, quite reasonably, whether Chohan would be using such language once he had assumed his ministerial responsibilities, at which point Chohan took off his microphone and earpieces and terminated the interview. This was bad optics all around. The defence offered by Chohan was that the formal interview had ended and the clip was therefore inappropriately broadcast. He also made reference to other politicians that had been loose-lipped on air in the past. The Punjab senior minister has tendered an apology on behalf of Chohan and the chief minister is doubtless aware of the episode, how could be otherwise?
There is media training available for tyro ministers who need to be taught how to handle themselves in front of the cameras, and it is suggested that all the mainstream parties which are now putting up minimally experienced men and women for interviews to invest in a little downstream insurance. A well-zipped lip can be worth its weight in gold.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 31st, 2018.
One such incident in recent days has caught the public attention as well as the attention of the media that caught the incident in the first place. Those being interviewed are going to have to get used to the reality of hard questions coming their way, with the expectation that they will be well enough briefed by their support teams before they go on air to handle anything that might come at them. This was obviously not the case with the Punjab Information Minister — note, the Information Minister — Fayazul Hasan Chohan who used abusive language in the course of an interview, clips of which have inevitably gone viral to compound his discomfort.
The minister was on the receiving end of searching questions and abused the anchor doing the asking. The anchor asked, quite reasonably, whether Chohan would be using such language once he had assumed his ministerial responsibilities, at which point Chohan took off his microphone and earpieces and terminated the interview. This was bad optics all around. The defence offered by Chohan was that the formal interview had ended and the clip was therefore inappropriately broadcast. He also made reference to other politicians that had been loose-lipped on air in the past. The Punjab senior minister has tendered an apology on behalf of Chohan and the chief minister is doubtless aware of the episode, how could be otherwise?
There is media training available for tyro ministers who need to be taught how to handle themselves in front of the cameras, and it is suggested that all the mainstream parties which are now putting up minimally experienced men and women for interviews to invest in a little downstream insurance. A well-zipped lip can be worth its weight in gold.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 31st, 2018.