Last week, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Communications ended an 11 week course on modern diplomacy and foreign service work. Normally targeted as a programme designed to develop competencies for diplomats and foreign service workers, Minister Suruj Rambachan took the admirable step of inviting media workers to attend the course. This has not been the case within recent memory in the Foreign Affairs Ministry and might well be a fortunate consequence of the merging of the portfolios of foreign affairs and communications, but the move sets a useful precedent in Government's relationship with the media.
The extensive course was a challenge for media professionals to attend, running for more than 28 days over the three months that the course ran for, and just one media professional, the Guardian's Richard Lord, completed the course. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Communications shouldn't be discouraged by the less than overwhelming media response to the impressive course, produced in partnership with the Institute of International Relations at the University of the West Indies. Most media houses would have been challenged to give up their senior newsroom staff for the length of time necessary to complete the course material, which after all, is designed to prepare the Ministry's employees for full-time work in the field.
When a review of the media engagement initiative is done, perhaps the Ministry might wish to review the content of the course material and identify which modules would offer the greatest utility for the time investment for media attendees. Courses such as "Diaspora and T&T Development‚" and "Public Diplomacy, Networking and Advocacy‚" (taught by Edwin Carrington, no less), are more directly relevant to improving the quality of media reporting and analysis of this country's international relations than modules focused on hosting skills and protocol.
Separating such courses from the overall coaching engagement and focusing them on media participants might improve newsroom attendance for any future courses and maximise the exposure of a wider profile of media workers to invaluable talks by luminaries in the field of international relations. One model engagement with the media in recent months was also an effort by a state institution to coach the media, this time in Parliamentary process and procedure organised by Parliament and the Media Association of Trinidad and Tobago. During one tautly planned, information packed day, the Speaker led a gathering of informed and eloquent colleagues in sharing information with an impressive gathering of media workers, explaining the process, principles and protocols of Parliamentary procedure.
Such initiatives by state bodies and enterprises are both useful and appreciated by media workers not just as useful education opportunities but because they represent an opportunity to embrace practical knowledge offered by skilled professionals still very much engaged in the day to day process of understanding, executing and delivering the very services they are explaining. The Parliament workshop, for instance, was enriched by up-to-date examples of process and procedure offered by professionals who had worked through the situations that were being discussed.
There's no substitute for that kind of learned, practical experience shared first hand and that kind of peer engagement with the media is to be encouraged in other ministries and state enterprises. In saluting the efforts of Dr Surujrattan Rambachan and the Speaker Wade Mark in their efforts to share the first hand knowledge and experience developed in their areas of responsibility, other ministries and state enterprises will be inspired to take example and improve the understanding of their core businesses by sharing coaching opportunities that arise (or are arranged) with media professionals keen to develop a deeper understanding of the nuances of the business of governance.