In a talk show celebrating World Radio Day last month, radio presenter Fred Obachi Machoka made an observation about communication.
Machoka said that the Voice of Kenya (VOK), as the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC) was formerly called, had reserved the communication of news events of far-reaching impact by certain news casters, the most well-known being Stephen Kigumu.
"Stephen Kigumu was breaking news,” Machoka observed.
He said whenever VOK aired news of immense ramifications, it assigned Kigumu to announce it.
“Stephen Kigumu on air at 1 o'clock news bulletin meant breaking news,” Machoka recalled, saying the news would be about Cabinet announcement or its reshuffle or the announcement of the death of a prominent man in the country.
Machoka was paying homage to an important principle or element at the core of every communication, what communication theorists call messaging, to look scholarly.
The principle is that in the career of news, information is very important in any communication or dissemination of the news, or information in question.
The gravity of the messenger must be equal to the gravity of the message he or she is disseminating. Message alone is not enough to be acknowledged, believed and acted upon.
The credibility of the message in the eyes of an audience depends on the good name or credibility of the messenger.
The editorial leadership of VOK did not invent this. It is the bedrock of any communication situation. The speaker or the messenger has always been the heart of communication in all civilisations, ancient and modern, African, European, Asian, Native American Indians or aborigines of New Zealand and Australia.
In all these civilisations, there were special people, acknowledged and respected, who announced or communicated certain aspects of information or news.
Some pieces of information were reserved for kings or chiefs to communicate. Information concerning culture or certain rituals was reserved for other categories of people to announce.
In traditional Africa, we had people especially delegated or dedicated to announce certain pieces of information.
The person who announced the death or appointment of a chieftain in the community was not the same person who announced the birth of a child. We see this happen in Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.
We had different people announcing, for example, that a certain household was having meat to be taken on credit. We had such a person, called Kuronya, among the Luhya people.
There were persons reserved to mediate or communicate during cultural occasions such as dispute resolutions between couples, families, or clans. All these people had something similar: they were good men and women.
Classical Roman orator, writer, and teacher of rhetoric, Quintilian was an observer in his Institutes of Oratory: “A bad man will not speak with the same authority and effect on virtue and morality as a good man.”
The elders in African communities, Aristotle, Quintilian, Marshall McLuhan and other teachers of communications observed that a message cannot fly without the source or messenger. That source or messenger must be trustworthy, reliable and credible.
It doesn’t matter whether the message is authentic, properly packaged, or reasonable. It doesn’t matter whether it has the capacity to appeal to the emotional and other needs of the people it targets. Its cogency in logic is important.
If there are questions about the credibility and the expertise of the message carrier, that message is tainted. Nobody takes it seriously unless the person is naïve or plain stupid. without the right speaker or carrier of the message, it is hot air.
These principles apply in any communication or rhetorical situation. Why is this so? This is because there are certain occasions that the community needs action by certain people and not others.
The occasion could be a source of anxiety, confusion, ambiguity or conflict. Human beings are very uncomfortable with confusing or ambiguous situations. They want someone, the right person in the circumstance, to address the anxiety, confusion, ambiguity or conflict.
The communication in question needs persuasion. The speech or text, the words and gymnastics associated with it, seeks to influence an audience’s actions.
The man courting a woman. The politician seeking votes. The cabinet secretary talking to members of the national assembly. The President is talking to citizens. The salesman talking to customers.
Diplomats discussing settlement of disputes between sovereign states. All are involved in persuasion of some sort. To attract attention, understanding, and acceptance, one must be good, likeable and credible.
Aristotle the Greek philosopher, says that rhetoric is the art of discovering all of the available means of persuasion in any given situation. Whatever the means available, the speaker, the persuader, must be good.
Legacy media appreciates all these dynamics of communications. They appreciate the critical role of the messenger in all their news bulletins and programming.
Regrettably, to new media, digital media, social media, these fundamentals of communication are silly. You see information bandied around without attribution, authority and empathy.
I see the same malaise in politics. Source credibility, logic and empathy make political communication persuasive. However, what is seen in some political formations is a tower of babel. Everyone talking and talking at cross-purposes. This is tragic.
I see some political formations allowing bad men to talk on their behalf. They talk about issues that are far above them in terms of gravity or seriousness.
These men have credibility issues. They don’t hold positions of authority in the ranks of the political formation. But they are messengers of issues bigger than their standing in the society and on behalf of the institutions.
That is not persuasion. That is utter lunacy.
There must be a Stephen Kigumu in every communication situation. The presence of a credible and appropriate messenger in any given communication situation demonstrates several things.
First, that we respect the audience we want to share or influence. Secondly, we care about the society and the future of the society. Thirdly, that we respect ourselves.
The absence of a Stephen Kigumu in any communication situation speaks volumes about integrity of those who exclude a Stephen Kigumu from taking center stage on communication, be it group, organisational, public or mass communications.
Communication is presence. Presence means many things. It means empathy. It means leadership. It means solving problems. And mentoring followers.
Inability to take into account who speaks on what means many things. It means that we don’t care. It means that we don’t have solutions to a problem or problems. It means that we are not in the business of giving direction.
