Government to appoint focal persons for media interaction

Decision has been taken to improve communication

PESHAWAR: In order to improve the communication of information between the media and the government, the Information department of the province has asked various offices to designate focal persons.

The Information department of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa asked the administrative secretaries of various departments of the government to assign the job to an officer who is not at a level less than grade-18. This was mentioned in a letter issued by the department to various government offices. A copy of the letter is available with The Express Tribune.

The decision to designate officials was taken on September 8 at a meeting held by K-P Information and Public Relations Secretary Abid Majeed. “The name and contact number of the officials will be shared with reporters who will no longer have to search for the relevant person,” the letter quotes Majeed as saying. “The focal person should be an officer who can directly ask the secretary of the respective department for responses to queries of journalists.”

Majeed added his department would make a list of focal persons of all the departments. Similarly, the information department would ask the media to share their reporters’ names and contact information so it could be forwarded to the focal persons. “We have also planned to hold a two-hour orientation session where focal persons and reporters can interact and learn about each other.”

Majeed said that unlike a public information officer designated under the Right to Information Act 2013, the focal person would give prompt responses to journalists because the media had time constraints and cannot wait for the department’s response.

“The focal persons would have the names and contact information of the reporters, and would also not be bothered by calls from irrelevant people,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 29^th, 2015.