Faltering start for fledging press service

Date: 06/01/2000

The European Commission's new Press and Communication Service has got off to a shaky start, with a row over TV broadcasts of briefings and complaints from journalists over the the new team's approach. Gareth Harding reports on the war of words in the press room

The European Commission's press service will be hoping that journalists return from their Christmas holidays in a better mood than when they left.

In the final weeks of last year, at a time when reporters and spokesmen and women are usually to be found reminiscing about the big stories of the year and sipping mulled wine together, the two sides were instead at each other's throats.

By the end of November, things had got so bad that the world's largest press corps took the extraordinary step of holding its first-ever meeting devoted solely to relations with the Commission. In a letter to its members afterwards, the International Press Association (known by its French acronym API) said the meeting had "confirmed the general feeling of malaise" about the newly-formed Press and Communication Service (PCS).

The main bone of contention was over how and when the Commission's midday press briefings should be broadcast on the 'Europe by Satellite' channel. Some journalists protested that the practice of televising the daily press conference failed to protect the identity of reporters and prevented briefings from being held on an off-the-record basis.

The PCS initially stuck to its guns, insisting that it would not be bullied by luddite journalists opposed to technological change. But a compromise was struck in the dying days of 1999 despite opposition from some within the service who believed the Commission should stand firm.

Under the agreement, broadcasting will in future be limited to Commissioners' press conferences and the midday briefing on Wednesdays, when the full College meets to take key decisions.

Some Commission insiders believe that the broadcasting row was sparked by a vociferous minority within the Brussels press corps and that its views are not shared by the rest. But many journalists argue that the dispute was a "symptom, not the source of the problem" between the media and the press service, and that the real reason for the breakdown in relations was the poor service provided by the PCS.

Many reporters complain that the Commission's new spokesmen and women take themselves too seriously, fail to respond to calls, give vague and wooden replies to questions, draw up badly-worded press releases and are frequently unavailable, evasive or poorly briefed.

API board member Michael Stabenow argues that the new team "simply does not have the right approach", adding: "They talk about having the most open press service ever and being at our disposal 24 hours a day, seven days a week, but this just has not materialised."

A particular gripe of the Brussels-based press corps is that the PCS does not understand the needs of journalists because only a handful have worked in, or with, the media before. Jakob Langvad of the Danish daily newspaper Information says the new spokesmen and women are "probably competent bureaucrats but do not have much of a knack with the press yet", while former spokesman Nigel Gardner argues that the absence of journalists in the service is "unlike any other government media service in the world".

PCS head Jonathan Faull admits that "some of us are new, a little stiff and have things to learn", but insists that the new group must be given time to "settle down". He points out that all the new press officers have had media training, speak fluent French and English, and are often experts in their field. As a result, he believes the new service is more professional, better able to get its message across and presents a more coordinated information policy.

Since the PCS was set up in the early autumn, a number of practical changes have indeed been broadly welcomed by journalists. There are more briefings by Commissioners and technical experts, spokesmen and women are almost always present in the press room for the daily briefings, and they are more available than the old team. All now have mobile phones and there are plans to install a dedicated switchboard soon to ensure calls are always answered or redirected.

The new press service is certainly more professional than its predecessor. Spokesmen and women now deliver their daily messages from White House-style lecterns and are usually impeccably turned out in sombre suits and sensible haircuts. The gaudy yellow-starred backdrop of the old-look press room has given way to the type of bland blue carpeted walls favoured by major hotel chains, and President Romano Prodi's spokesman Ricardo Levi is certainly more skilled in the art of spin-doctoring than former chief spokeswoman Martine Reicherts.

However, given the dire image, shambolic structure and disastrous results of former President Jacques Santer's Spokesmen's Service, simply being slicker than the last lot is hardly a great achievement.

Gardner argues that "a great opportunity has been missed to give the Commission a modern media and communications service", and adds that "politically, communication is still not given a top priority by Prodi's Commission".

Part of the problem is that when Prodi was appointed, he made revamping the press service one of the priorities of his presidency. One of his first acts was to put the newly-created PCS under his personal command. Another was to bring over Levi, his mouthpiece when he was Italian prime minister, over from Rome.

Prodi was initially planning to slash the number of spokesmen and women and abolish the practice of each Commissioner having an individual press officer. The aim of the move was two-fold: to bolster his personal power and to avoid members of his college briefing against each other. However, this ran into fierce opposition from the new Commissioners, who all insisted on having a press officer for their particular policy areas.

Another early idea which fell by the wayside was to have spokesmen and women capable of dealing with all issues for each national media. Instead, the present team is largely made up of British, Germans and French, with the Spanish, Irish and Finns uncatered for.

Senior Commission officials say the new PCS is "still very much under construction" and that the revolution which began in September remains unfinished.

In the near future, the service plans to recruit seven to ten additional press officers to deal with issues which involve more than one Commission department and to answer questions in all the main EU languages. It also intends to continue training its staff.

These changes should go some way towards pacifying disgruntled hacks. But one of the main sources of the current conflict is likely to remain. During the auditions for would-be Commissioners in September, MEPs extracted a promise from Prodi's team that it would inform the European Parliament of new policy initiatives before the press.

"It makes sense that they should tell us first. Before we always found out things second hand, which puts us in a difficult situation when something is leaked and we are forced to respond immediately," says British Labour MEP Eluned Morgan, the Socialist Group's spokeswoman on budgetary affairs.

However, this pledge - which has been dutifully upheld by the Commission so far - makes life more difficult for reporters as officials are more nervous about leaking information and the timetable for announcing major policy initiatives is dictated by the needs of MEPs rather than news-room deadlines.

Part of the tension between journalists and press officers is a legacy of the dying days of Santer's reign, when Commissioners resorted to the tried and tested technique of shooting the messenger for bringing bad news. But it is also the result of a new mood in the Brussels-based press corps. Having brought the previous Commission to its knees last March, journalists are now constantly on the look out for new scandals and new scalps.

Any advertising executive worth his salt will tell you that how a product is promoted is as important as the quality of the product itself. In recent years, the Commission's brand name has taken a battering and the PCS faces the unenviable task of selling what is still a faulty product to a sceptical public.

So far, it has managed to avoid making any serious mistakes. But with Prodi's honeymoon period now well and truly over, the press service will have to spin like a top just to stay still.

Major feature. The European Commission's new Press and Communication Service has got off to a shaky start, with a row over TV broadcasts of briefings and complaints from journalists over the new team's approach.