Malaysia appears naked today under the spotlight of global attention but what is the real problem and what are the real factors contributing to this criticism of Malaysian “information dissemination and communication by different individuals” and the apparent disconnect between the information disseminated and the reality of what was really known? I call it an abject failure of communication management. What do I mean?

Knowing versus not knowing deals with a particular theory of knowledge. Most of the families of the passengers and crew are dealing with their “lack of personal knowledge about their relatives” and their emotional inability to handle “this phenomenon of not knowing” about what happened to their loved ones. It is only a natural reaction.  

My view is that most are only still in the Kubler Ross’s denial stage; the first of five stages of death and dying. The stages are Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. Therefore, when reports are giving hope of recovery of the plane; it keeps families further in the denial stage; all too often without ever getting out of it! Then, blame and aggression is the only option.

The Malaysian daily ‘press briefings’ given by the ‘officials of the government of Malaysia’ were unfortunately more non-information and misinformation rather than information in the early days; and, hopefully, with the PM’s statement, there was more real information and communication.

While the Malaysian officials; whether the acting transport minister who also happens to be defence minister, or the inspector-general of police (IGP), or the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) chief, or the Air Force chief, or the Immigration official spokesperson, only gave bits and pieces of uncoordinated of datum, it was not good well coordinated and connected information.  

In short, no one seriously bothered to connect the dots for the world, to tell a storyline of what was the likelihood incident; with only one exception, the IGP, and now the PM, to my knowledge.

In order to connect the dots, one has to build or develop plausible or possible theories and then explain what you think is the likely theory of what happened to the MH370. This is never about giving the so-called facts or data points without reviewing and revising the context.

To communicate real information, one must move from mere data-sets towards information, and then to knowledge, and finally towards wisdom about what could possibly have happened. It is a move from the possible to the plausible and then to the likely, every time.

My theory about MH370

Any good DEEP analysis takes into consideration all the key stakeholders involved by this unfortunate incident with the MH370 before we build a theoretical model of plausible theories. The likely theory is then pursued until it is also fully dismissed. A search for detailed facts and evidence must then support further theory development and the pursuit of knowledge; but all such works continuously must narrow options and cannot keep increasing them.

The greatest failure of my former public service colleagues is that they were not really prepared for the exceptional glare of public scrutiny from the investigative corps of global “paparazzi of media professionals”. Therefore, I would propose that they were only prepared with data or scripts and scraps of data but not information and with little knowledge or wisdom over this complex subject matter.

Let me therefore first list out all the stakeholders in our analytical model. My information was only from what was gathered sitting at home and simply following matters either on the Internet or the TV. I made no active search for more information.

Understanding all stakeholders

My academic analysis produced at least 12 real-life stakeholders; all of whom want their questions and queries answered by those responsible! These stakeholders are:

  • Different passenger nationalities and their families or close ones;
  • About 12 crew members of MH Flight and their families or close ones;
  • The owners of MH, their representative parties, and responsible parties;
  • The Malaysian Department of Civil Aviation and their commitment to international standards of civil aviation;
  • The global aviation industry and their commitment to flight safety standards;
  • Malaysian citizens and their concerns for the public interest of air safety in Malaysia;
  • Media agencies (both local and global ones) and their interest in truth matters;
  • Foreign governments and their interest on behalf of their citizens;
  • Unidentified terrorists or those with equally idiosyncratic intentions;
  • Tourism Malaysia and the brand called  MH or Malaysian Hospitality (or Malaysia Truly Asia) and public safety in Malaysia; and
  • Producers of the Boeing 777 planes and related partners like Rolls Royce and their commitment to their brand and quality of service
  • Insurance parties and their accepting this as “a natural or human disaster”.

The people who are responsible and accountable in Malaysia are MH owners and directors, the Transport Ministry, and the Department of Civil Aviation, with the government of Malaysia.

Good media and public relations communication

Any good communication programme based on knowledge would ensure that clear and specific media messages are sent to each category of stakeholders by empathising with each of them and completing their “concern or need for good information, and sometimes, knowledge”.

Rather unfortunately, the way the media briefings were handled created the problems. Initially the DCA chief was doing well with good and clear answers on what was known and unknown. Problems started when all other ‘little chieftains’ with little information domains got involved with the absence of a trained public relations professionals building or developing a clear storyline.  

Therefore we were exposed to many to alternate sources of data but not information; the little bits of data and misinformation, but without an ability to connect the dots and build likely theories of information and knowledge of truth matters.

My prayer and hope is that we will learn from this communication disaster of the MH370 tragedy and learn the limits of untimely or irrelevant information and how they need to be handled. My suggestion is that the whole cabinet of Malaysia should read and understand the substance of what is good communication management.  

Good media culture and the need for transparency and good ethics which defines good information communication management is crticial.   

May God bless Malaysia through this painful period of uncertainty.