TNAG-0070-FCO40-106-Disturbances-in-Hong-Kong-propaganda-1968 — Page 66

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CONFIDENTIAL

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competent to deal with. It also militates against the effective performance of information functions.

24.

Close observation suggests in fact that for effective operation a departmental organisation with its notions, or obligations of pyramidal seniority structure are antagonistic if not fatal to useful and productive information work.

25.

"Parkinson's Law" operates with relentless power in such place as the I.S.D..press room where titles of seniority proliferate and promotion dependent on the efficient performance of information tasks leads inevitably to administrative posts where those talents are unused. The most glaringly obvious feature of the press relations work of the department at the present time is that the critical part of the work is being done by those least fitted for it. Those best able to do it are engaged on tasks which make no demands on the skills they have laboriously and, for the Government, expensively acquired and on the basis of which they earned their promotion.

26.

All newspapermen and many Government officers who have dealings with the department's press room on a day-to-day basis, and on the level at which normal routine enquiries are handled, have the same impression of the low-calibre of the officers they deal with. There is bound to be a general feeling that the man does not grasp the subject he is dealing with. Senior Government officers expecting to receive careful professional advice on serious matters speak of having little confidence in these officers. Yet it is the handling of these day-to-day routine enquiries which form the backbone of the Government's information work.

27.

In a situation where an enquiring newspaperman, or a senior Government officer only feels he will get satisfaction if he approaches a senior officer of I.S.D. one is bound to ask why there is so much reliance on so many ill-equipped juniors.

28.

There are many reasons. They include the fact that I.S.D. has given a lead to other departments in this policy of local recruitment, often in the face of good sense from all other points of view. (Local journalists who would press as a matter of public policy for local recruitment would put the efficient handling of press enquiries far higher in the list of priorities.)

29.

Another factor is certainly the policy of recruiting journalists wherever possible. This again dates back to the original director who had some journalistic experience himself and subscribed to the belief that only journalists could speak to journalists. This is an easy axiom to accept but will not stand examination. Perhaps in the first place it applies more readily in countries where journalists are of a higher standard than in Hong Kong. But it is not likely to be true that a bad or mediocre journalist is the best person to speak to a journalist. For many years I.S.D. has been recruiting steadily

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