As the year draws to a close, some media organisations will inevitably embark on their annual ritual of “grading” ministers on their performance. Historically, these scorecards have lacked robust, rigorous, and objective criteria. One or two isolated anecdotes are often invoked selectively to justify a predetermined grading, rather than advancing any substantive or comprehensive analysis.
Too often, such evaluations reflect personal preference or political sentiment, reducing them to expressions of affinity or aversion towards a particular minister rather than fact-based assessments. In a recent opinion piece, Adriaan Basson provocatively asks: “Psst! Has anyone seen GCIS [Government Communication and Information System]?” It is a question that, at first glance, might seem a compelling journalistic call for accountability.
Yet, beneath its rhetorical flourish lies a fundamental misreading of the GCIS and the imperatives of government communication. To ask whether GCIS is “visible” in the traditional media sense is to misunderstand its mandate. Equating effective communication with media visibility misinterprets the GCIS mandate.
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GCIS is not merely a press office or a reactive commentator. It is, constitutionally and strategically, the nerve centre of government communication, tasked with coordination, guidance, and oversight across all departments, spheres, and levels of government. Its responsibilities extend beyond the narrow confines of media coverage to the far more consequential sphere of citizen engagement, public trust, and strategic coherence.
That they may not appear as flashy front-page stories does not render them absent. In fact, the “invisibility” lament betrays a narrow conception of what government communication in the 21st century entails. It exposes a limited understanding of contemporary government communication.
Developmental stories of government achievement, from community upliftment projects to citizen engagement initiatives, rarely meet newsroom thresholds driven largely by controversy and spectacle. GCIS, operating within this ecosystem, cannot manufacture headlines, but it ensures that government messaging reaches the most important audience: the citizens. How many journalists attend Imbizos, witness community outreach programmes or examine the strategic imperatives of government communication?
Any critique without such reflection is both incomplete and misleading. Rather than ask whether GCIS can be “seen”, perhaps the more pressing question is whether media and public discourse can adapt to see beyond the superficial.
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