PM's talk show

The Prime Minister's meeting with a small group of five editors, on Wednesday has received a mixed reaction not because of what he is reported to have said to them, but because he held the meeting at all. For one thing, he is seen as having succumbed to pressure from the media and his party to ‘talk'; and, for another, he is seen as having been on the defensive and said nothing particularly noteworthy.

On a balanced view, taken after a detailed reading of the reporting on the meeting, the Prime Minister would be well-advised to discontinue this strange experiment in communication which does little to preserve the dignity of the office. Instead, he should perhaps ask his media advisor to do his job better. Had that been happening, the Prime Minister would not have been pushed into this quixotic move because, after all, the criticism that the Prime Minister doesn't talk was not meant to be taken literally; it was only meant to point out that his views were not getting communicated effectively. Indeed, it was partly to tackle this problem that Ministers have been briefing the media regularly. But the inability of the PMO to interact with the press on a pro-active basis had created the impression that the PM was in hiding. To show that he was not, the meeting was given unnecessary publicity, thus annoying the electronic media which assumes a pre-emptive right on such meetings. Far better results will be achieved if the Prime Minister reverts to the usual practice, not just in India but globally, of informal, seemingly impromptu meetings with the media. These can take place at short notice, anywhere. The essence of good communication is quiet discretion, especially of the kind practised by no less a personage than the Congress president herself. Left to himself, Dr Singh is also quite an expert in that mode; he merely needs to be serviced better by his office.

That said, the Prime Minister is probably right when he says that things are not as bad as made out by the media. But at least to the extent that this is mainly because of the 24x7 news channels — which like the mythical Kabanda from the Ramayana have an insatiable appetite for bad news and which need to sensationalise even the smallest things to get viewership; it is something he will have to live with, just as his counterparts in other countries do. The trick they have learned is to manage the electronic media, not ignore it. The PMO has let the Prime Minister down in this regard and is expecting him to pull the chestnuts out the fire. Finally, it is not the editors who write the news; it is the reporters. It is with them that the PMO needs to build bridges, not with editors alone.