Fire Press Aide George Chellah! Time Posted: July 15, 2014 10:00 am 1,901 views | 29 Comments | Email This Post | Print This Post | George Chellah fidgiting with microphones before President Michael Sata made a very short speech during the funeral service of the accident victims in Ndola George Chellah – public relations disaster George Chellah should be discharged of his duties for making one of the worst public relations gaffes in the country. The irresponsible handling of the president’s “working holiday” by him should be used in schools of journalism and mass communication as an example of lack of interpersonal communication skills, and simply sheer ignorance. It has since become clear that Chellah is an unprofessional and immature presidential press aide who is unable to manage a crisis and deal with rumors and toxic fabrications. Actually his ineptitude has helped to engage the rumor mill into an irreversible gear. The past three weeks have been unprecedented in the annals of our country. Never has a living president, anywhere in the world, left his people in such a tormented, distraught manner, and in such a state of confusion. It was not like a healthy bubbly Sata was in Mfuwe for a working holiday. It was an emaciated, weak, and lethargic Sata jumping on a plane to Israel at short notice. In a country where many people are gullible enough to believe anything fed to them, Sata’s sudden trip raised eyebrows and rumors began to change by the hour. Instead of addressing them, Chellah chose to keep quiet. Chellah should know that he is not only the president’s spokesman, or writer of news releases, he is also the damage controller—leader of the management crisis brigade at State House. Simply put, he is the president’s fire fighter employed to extinguish blazes. A press aide of Chellah’s position should know how to handle rumors, quips, and platitudes that involve the president. In the case of the president’s behavior the past three weeks, Chellah should have devised a strategy aimed at changing public perception in favor of the president. He should have been responding promptly in order to save the president’s face. To respond three weeks later is a clear indication that Chellah does not know the role of a press aide as defined above. He is simply a reporter trained to gather news. His duty is to find out the “who,” “”what,” “where,” “when,” “why,” and “how,” of a story and write it. I have no idea what level of journalism he has reached; it is definitely of substandard or kindly put, mediocre. The release of Sata’s pictures on Monday, July 14, 2014 was the cheapest of shorts by a failed public relations department at State House. I will not waste time insisting that Chellah be fired because Sata has no clue what I am talking about. This calls to the attention why a president must have a college degree of some sort. A person in State House must be of sound learning and must use thought and reason, coupled with intelligence and good judgment. He must know when he is hurting his people and when to stop. That’s all I can say. As for Chellah, looking at Sata’s recent pictures felt like having a paranormal encounter with a ghost. There was a little heart-thump at seeing him. Even some of his cabinet members were for a moment driven into a spectral suspension. I bet many readers were equally petrified because in as far as they were concerned, the president was critically ill and near death. In fact some, including his closest confidantes, believed he had already expired and would be brought back home as cargo. And Chellah’s silence seemed to rather confirm the perception. Such was his unskillfulness. Had he acted professionally and corrected the erroneous impression right from the start, he would have saved the nation the rotten feeling of grief. Chellah knows very well that the state in which the president was before July 22, 2014, the date of departure, was worrisome. Some pictures showed him underweight, with head and facial bones protruding. As Chellah prepared the trip, he should have taken all reasonable steps to ensure truthful information about the president’s condition was provided to the media. In his press release he should have stated that apart from meeting Israeli officials, the president would be undergoing medical treatment or a medical check-up. Upon arrival at Tel Aviv airport he should have taken pictures of the president being met by an Israel official as is required protocol whether on official visit or not. He should have sent the pictures to Times of Zambia and Zambia Daily Mail and of course ZNBC. In other words, he should have stuck to real journalism principles: report the facts; don’t speculate on the unknown, nor create news on the basis of lies. And as rumors continued to swell, he should have been feeding the Zambian media with images and updates. Revamping Public Relations section of State House cardinal I am cognizant of the fact that Chellah is dealing with a very difficult president, a master of diversionary tactics and a consummate schemer whose motto is “my way or the highway.” The dreadful feeling of being in Sata’s service is unimaginable and Chellah may be applying silent rules of non-interference as a result. But that is no excuse. It is characters like Sata that a savvy and well-qualified press aide relishes. He finds a way to become the president’s brain and a master of the two. He educates him on the importance of communicating with the public; and encourages him to hold press conferences at least on quarterly basis; and above all, he makes him to appreciate openness, truthfulness, and love for his people. Obviously Chellah has failed, and for three years he has been press aide, he has lamentably failed to provide an effective moral strategy of dealing with the president’s behavior. We have watched him embrace the president’s tyrannical rule and his gullibility has led to a disastrous public relations performance by any presidential press aide in modern times. Let me end with these words: The police and intelligence wings should not be pursuing online news editors for spreading rumors that Sata is in bad health. Instead, State House should revamp the public relations section and employ well-qualified staff. The president’s press aide should be a holder of a minimum bachelor’s degree in mass communications and journalism with vast experience in media (print and electronic), and public relations. He should have knowledge of how government works, its economics, public policy, and should be able to manage emergencies, crises, and have an upper hand on gossip-based media. That is what Zambians deserve. By Field Ruwe.
Posted on: Tue, 15 Jul 2014 09:51:34 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015