Public trust
Once a year, Logeion (the Dutch professional association for communication professionals) organizes the Galjaard Day professional conference on public communication. Originally started as a tribute to Chiel Galjaard, who made his mark in the field of government communication, it has now grown into a meeting where public communication is central. With interesting speakers and beautiful cases from all parts of the country. Cases that deal with the role that communication has played in involving citizens in (the implementation of) government decisions. These people proudly present their campaigns and it is very interesting to see what issues local or regional governments have to deal with.
This year there were three interesting speakers on stage: Alex Aiken, the head of communications for the British government, who used examples such as Brexit and the Salisbury poisoning to explain how he and his team try to orchestrate communications. Councilor Lot van Hooijdonk discussed with the visitors how to... silent majority can give a voice. A voice that is needed to make the right decisions in our democracy. That is not always possible, also because politicians are sometimes guided by 'the news', news that by definition is about the exception.
This fitted in nicely with the argument of Jacques Wallage about who should be responsible for the quality and reliability of government communication and how do you as an administration continue to connect with citizens? And of course the tension between government communication and that of politicians is discussed, which is often aimed at achieving political gains and/or preventing political losses. Objectively standing up for the values of government communication then easily becomes subordinate to that profit and loss account. And in this way our democracy is in trouble. Against this background, Wallage argued for one legally anchored watchdog which examines all government communications for objectivity, quality and reliability. An independent watchdog, such as the National Ombudsman, who reports to the House so that the supervisory function of parliament on this aspect of government action receives more attention, is viewed from objective standards and, partly as a result, will occupy a more solid place on the parliamentary agenda.
An interesting thought, especially with all the issues that citizens are currently dealing with or that are still coming their way. In this way, challenges such as achieving the climate objectives or focusing on the health of the Dutch become less of a political issue and return to where they should be; at the government.
