A crisis in communication

A  few years ago, I attended a meeting of senior Church officials where a priest with many years of experience as a journalist suggested an idea which, if adopted at the time, could well have changed the outcome of Kenya’s referendum on a new constitution on August 4.

The “Yes” side grabbed victory, running away with 67% of the vote against the “No” side which, supported by nearly all church leaders, trailed at a distance. The churches were opposed to the draft constitution mainly because of a clause that could be used to legalise abortion-on-demand. The proposed law also retained Muslim courts, which in the view of Church leaders amounted to elevating one religion above the rest in a secular state.

How could the “No” side lose in a country said to be up to 80% Christian? The subject has been discussed endlessly in Kenya. Quite apart from the fact that the new constitution is a far better supreme law than what we inherited from British colonialists and that it was supported by large sections of Kenyan society, it is believed the Church’s opposition failed because Church leaders are no longer heeded by the faithful.

In fact, an opinion poll by the respected Synovate group shortly after the referendum showed that only about 19% of Christians trusted their spiritual leaders on public issues.

The priest-journalist’s idea a few years back could have changed much of that. He had suggested that the Social Communications Department of the Kenya Episcopal Conference should get the e-mail addresses of all the priests working in the country.

Whenever the bishops issued a statement, they should not just read it at a news conference. The document should also be posted immediately to all the priests around the country, with instructions that it be translated into vernacular (where English or Kiswahili is not widely used) and then read out at Mass on Sunday.

In the dioceses, communications coordinators should also have the e-mail addresses of all the priests and send them the bishop’s official documents every time he issued them. That way, the Church leaders’ positions on important issues would be well known to the faithful.

Kenyan bishops speak out often. But their messages hardly reach the faithful. The matter basically ends at the news conference, which could get only a few minutes in prime-time news in the event that editors decide it is important. That was the problem the priest-journalist wanted to solve with his simple e-mail idea. But nobody took it up.

Over 70% of Kenyans rely solely on radio for news and information. Yet the Catholic Church has one small national radio that is heard only within 150km of the studios in Nairobi. The station is at the bottom of the broadcasting pile because it lacks resources, competent personnel and official interest.

The furthest the national Catholic monthly magazine reaches is probably the diocesan offices. There are a few other magazines published by religious congregations or institutions.

Because Church media in Kenya is woefully inadequate, the bishops have to use the vibrant secular media. They buy space or airtime at exorbitant rates. Or they can do news conferences and wait for their detailed pastoral letters to come out as mere sound bites taken out of context or a few column inches in the newspapers.

The result? Organisations and institutions with deep pockets saturate the media with their messages and the Church is obscured. That is mostly what happened during the referendum campaigns.

In the last week, “Yes” teams ran adverts accusing the Church of spreading lies about the proposed law. An informed source told me Church officials crafted their own adverts in response. But they were told by media houses that it was well past the deadline for campaign adverts set by the elections commission.

My point? Our Church urgently needs to address its communication crisis. That is what the priest-journalist had in mind with his e-mail idea.

We live in the information age. If you are not seen or heard in the media, you simply don’t exist.