In an attempt to contain the rising tide of criticism against the government, the PMO on Wednesday brought in senior television journalist

TV journalist joins PM’s media team

Jan 19, 2012 |

Age Correspondent

New Delhi

In an attempt to contain the rising tide of criticism against the government, the PMO on Wednesday brought in senior television journalist Pankaj Pachauri to strengthen its media wing as communications adviser to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Mr Harish Khare will continue to be the PM’s media adviser.

This move has been planned to refurbish the government’s image following a spate of negative publicity. The PMO and the government have been under constant attack in both the print and electronic media over a spate of issues, including the Lokpal Bill and the handling of Anna Hazare, scams like 2G, CWG and Adarsh and of late even over the Army Chief’s age controversy.

Earlier, in an effort to handle the media better and get some positive coverage, the government had even set up a Group of Ministers on the media, comprising senior ministers, who were fielded to respond to media queries and spruce up the government’s sagging image. The GoM comprised P. Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal, Ambika Soni, Salman Khurshid, Pawan Kumar Bansal, V. Narayansamy and Ghulam Nabi Azad.
Eleven young ministers were also appointed as government spokespersons to convey its points of view to the media. The ministers in this group — Jyotiraditya Scindia, R.P.N. Singh, Jitin Prasada, Sachin Pilot, Ajay Maken, Milind Deora, D. Purandeshwari Devi, Rajiv Shukla, Krishna Tirath, Ashwini Kumar and M. Pallam Raju — were expected to be available to the media to answer queries.
There have been whispers in Congress corridors that the government’s media management “was poor, and needed to be given some impetus”. It was being felt that the Opposition was getting more mileage in the media than the government of the day.