In this blog post, Sayan Mukherjee, a student of the University of Calcutta, who is currently pursuing a Diploma in Entrepreneurship Administration and Business Laws from NUJS, Kolkata, discusses the different clauses that have to be included in the media communication policy of a private company.
Introduction
A company’s advisory panel, nowadays, has formatted the key regulatory policies of an incorporated body under various heads. This paper questions the need for the media communication policy in a private company and aims to provide a comprehensive frame about the contents of such a regulatory instrument.
Communication policy ~vs.~ Media-communication policy:
For going into the depths of media communication policy, firstly, we need to separately understand media communication policy from general external communication policy.
I would rather interpret communication policy as genus and media communication as species.
A business operating in any situation has to undergo various types of interaction with the external world. A company frames its communication policy in order to have interaction and disclose valuable information to anyone except a director, employee, or person directly associated with the formation and functioning of the company. This implies that the policy is intended to provide an effective and efficient framework to assure that information disclosed by the company is timely, accurate, relevant, authoritative and comprehensive. Now, communication by a company may be to:
- Clients / customers, or
- Media agencies, or
- Social media, or
- The government, etc.
Thus media communication policy is actually a branch of the communication policy. A vital strategic goal of a business should be to manage media relationships judiciously. By the term judiciously it is implied that every business staff, employee, director or another officer shall apply due care and reason while interacting with the media. Thus it is advised to have a separate media communication policy for every company to highlight the dos and don’ts in a situation where media agencies try to informally or formally contact any personnel of the company for company related coverage.
In this digital world, it has become very easy for reporters and journalists to contact employees of a company to derive vital information and comments on various related issues. And any negative story cast by media has the potential to cause great harm to the business- which is rather slow and difficult to reverse.
Constitution
For a company in order to survive in this dynamic world shall be advised to include the following particulars in its media communication policy-
- Every media communication policy must have a well-defined purpose vis-à-vis release of material information to general public, media, customers, bondholders, stakeholders and potential investors.
- Every such policy must contain a proper scope defining the extent of applicability of such a policy.
- Every such policy must contain an interpretation clause to define all the related concepts referred in the policy, viz., company personnel, securities, confidential material information, general information; any committee formed like- disclose committee, selective discloser, corporate communication professionals, etc.
- Every such policy must provide for the appointment of designated spokesperson with necessary skillset to deal with media in view of the best interest of the company.
- Every such policy must contain the roles and responsibilities of the designated spokesperson.
- Every media communication policy must provide the delegatory power of such spokespersons vis-à-vis corporate communication professionals.
- Every such policy must form a disclosure committee to check into all the material facts and information of the company and differentiate confidential information from routine information. It shall also take the responsibility of educating the personnel of the company in case of media dealings.
- Every such policy must guide an employee or staff in a given situation with regards to the release of company’s information. The guidelines must provide that:
- Attitudes of personnel adopted towards the media and towards any probing questions.
- Duty to refer the media communication towards any corporate communication professional.
- In adverse conditions strictly avoid interaction regarding some prohibited issues like,
- Legal issues,
- Company ethics and integrity,
- Crisis management strategy of the company,
- Allegation of sexual abuse, bribery, accidents, frauds,
- Other areas totally beyond their expertise, etc.
The issues mentioned above must be strictly dealt with experts and communication professionals for the best interest of the company.
- Every such policy must contain any inspection related clause for proper organisation of media dealings.
- Every such policy must provide reporting guidelines about any events or other relevant issues to the media.
- Every such policy must contain proper induction of the consequences for non-compliance with the policy to prevent any lapse.
- Finally, every such policy must contain a clause for annual review of policy for proper amendments and updates to suit the dynamic market conditions.
Conclusion
Key internal policies of a company are undergoing a tremendous expansion. Day by day communication technologies is getting developed. Various new avenues to reach out to the mass and form public opinion has inspired us all in the past decade. Long gone the days of emails. Official communication is now taken the medium of WhatsApp, Facebook, and other social media. Companies had to formulate their media-communication policies accordingly as social media has now become a weapon for the agencies to form and influence public opinion. However, in legal parlance, media communication policy violation may not be prosecutable under Lex loci, but it well acts as a guideline for a protective approach to prevent serious disputes whether of criminal or civil nature.
