There was another Corona press conference and tomorrow there is another one. A new cabinet, a new Minister of Health; one who knows what he’s talking about. That’s very nice and that helps. But yes, did Mark Rutte and Ernst Kuipers do so much better and different communicatively now than the past press conferences?
We saw some graphs, which was a good idea. Pictures usually tell more than words. But they could have been a bit clearer and they really should have received attention. Some years ago now but still; with EditieNL we were the first to work with a large screen on which figures and sometimes graphs were shown. The big question was, “How do we deal with that?” The set was almost frame-filling and Jeroen Latijnhouwers and I had to be in front of it or next to it. And what do you look at? At the people at home or at that screen? We ended up standing halfway next to it and áf we talked about a figure, we would look at the screen so people could see that we thought it was important. And so they were watching with attention in those moments. And then there was something else. A lot of it we already knew because, again, it had been leaked. We knew that hospitality and culture would not open yet, no audience at sports. That disappointment was there. Then there is only one thing to do. Explain why you come to that choice. “We can’t open everything at once” is not enough. You have to answer the familiar WHY question. And yes, in communication, you especially need to avoid the word “NOT” as much as possible, because above all, you want to tell what WHY. Because of all the disappointment and misunderstanding, you have to indicate why you have come to this choice. So also why something cannot be done. The reason why? In restaurants, museums, cinemas, entertainment, etc. people are in the same room for a long time and that creates extra risk. We already allow that in schools. More cannot be added to that. You can still disagree with that, but at least then the “why question” has been answered. And meanwhile: Rutte and Kuipers are clear in that what they tell, but they sometimes have to make other choices in what they tell. Fortunately, if the first signs are not deceiving, they can deliver a positive message tomorrow. Nice to be able to tell that for once, too.
