Journalists lack perspective, brief them before press conference: Minister Suresh Prabhu

Union Civil Aviation Minister Suresh Prabhu during an interview | Kamal Singh/PTI

Civil Aviation Minister Suresh Prabhu says move needed because journalists ‘lack perspective’ on issues, but there are fears it is an attempt to peddle govt line.  

New Delhi: In a detour from its usual practice to keep information under wraps, the Ministry of Civil Aviation has now directed its officers to speak to the media and brief them on “issues pertaining to the ministry”.

This is because the Civil Aviation Minister, Suresh Prabhu, believes that journalists “lack perspective of various civil aviation issues”. There are, however, fears that this is an attempt to peddle the government narrative on issues.

The direction issued to all top officers by Dr Rohit Yadav, Prabhu’s private secretary, on 17 January, indicates that only a common perspective of the ministry, agreed upon by all the officers, should be shared with a select group of journalists “to maintain uniformity in the ministry’s version”.

“HMCA (Prabhu) has hence directed that officers of the ministry should interact with journalists to give them a first idea of the issues pertaining to the ministry (sic),” the communication states.

To this effect, the direction states, that all joint secretaries and directors in the ministry should discuss and finalise a common three or four-page brief on important initiatives and achievements of the ministry to bring out its perspective that can be shared with the media.

‘Meet select journalists individually’

The directive further states that each of the directors or joint secretaries should meet journalists individually and share information as decided in the brief.

“This will be done by selecting a cohort of media persons (around 30) and each JS/EA/director may be allotted 3-5 media persons with whom they shall interact individually,” the direction states. “Thereafter, HMCA (Prabhu) shall hold a combined media briefing on the same.”

It further states that this exercise should be completed within a week by the top officers before a media briefing is held by the minister.

While the move may improve access of journalists covering the ministry to an extent, government sources indicated this is yet another way to provide a certain narrative of the government and to only select journalists.

“It will also help in publicising the efforts taken the ministry,” a government official said.

An earlier circular issued by the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting had warned officials to refrain from communicating to journalists without a nod from the competent authority, which could be the minister, the secretary of a ministry or the departmental publicity officer of the ministry, citing the Press Information Bureau’s Information Dissemination Manual 2017.