By IANS,
New Delhi : With elections looming ahead, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Wednesday gave its spokespersons tips on the tricky business of how to manage the media with party president Rajnath Singh recommending that no information should be hidden from journalists.
Addressing over 60 spokespersons from various state units of the party at a daylong workshop, Rajnath Singh said that managing the media was more difficult than managing the masses.
“I have never in my entire career managed the media but media management is more difficult than mass management,” he said and asked them to develop a personal equation with journalists.
“Personal relations are the key to media management; not to hide any information from media persons should also be kept in mind,” Rajnath Singh suggested.
Organised with the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in view, the idea is to teach its units effective media management and grab maximum space in all forms of media.
Giving an instance of how the media can be used to the party’s advantage, Rajnath Singh said: “The Congress is trying to take the entire credit for the recent price cuts in various commodities. Our effort should be to effectively utilise the media to inform people that it is a global phenomenon.”
“The Congress has yet not declared its prime ministerial candidate and we, the NDA, have done it long time ago. This shows the confusion and uncertainty in Congress and this can be highlighted with the help of the media,” he added.
Senior party leaders, he said, were often too busy to interact with journalists and the onus, therefore, fell on the spokespersons.
Other senior party leaders also addressed the gathering.