A company launched a product and sought media coverage. That world is disappearing. Today, institutions do not merely communicate with the media. They increasingly operate as media organisations themselves.They have websites, newsletters, podcasts, livestreams, social media platforms, photographers, videographers and communication teams capable of producing content around the clock. A speech can be broadcast live.An announcement can reach thousands of people without passing through an editorial desk. A carefully produced video can become the story before a journalist has even begun reporting it.That is one of the most profound changes in the modern information environment. Public relations is becoming more powerful than journalism, not necessarily because PR has become better than journalism but because institutions have acquired unprecedented control over the production and distribution of their own narratives.That development is not inherently sinister. Institutions have a legitimate right to communicate. Governments must explain policies. Universities must demonstrate their contribution. Businesses must engage their customers and communities.The problem arises when communication becomes so sophisticated that persuasion begins to resemble independent information. A press release may contain facts. A corporate video may contain facts. A government social-media post may contain facts. However, facts presented by an interested institution are not automatically journalism.The difference lies in the question being asked. Public relations asks: How do we explain this institution? Journalism asks: What does the public need to know about this institution? Those questions may occasionally produce the same answer. They do not have the same purpose.The danger becomes particularly acute when visibility is mistaken for credibility. A professionally produced video can receive thousands of views without anyone examining the claims it contains.An attractive infographic can simplify a complicated policy while quietly excluding inconvenient information. A carefully constructed campaign can dominate public conversation before independent scrutiny begins.The digital age has therefore created an unusual paradox. We have more information than ever before, yet independent verification has not necessarily kept pace.Philosopher Jürgen Habermas’s concern about the public sphere remains relevant here. Democratic discussion requires spaces in which citizens can encounter competing ideas and critically evaluate claims. But when powerful institutions possess disproportionate capacity to shape that conversation, the public sphere can gradually become less a space of deliberation and more a marketplace of professionally manufactured narratives. This is not traditional censorship.Nobody necessarily has to ban a newspaper. Nobody has to silence a journalist. Sometimes all that is required is to speak louder, faster and more frequently than everyone else.The institution that can produce ten pieces of content before a newsroom can complete one investigation has acquired a significant advantage in shaping public perception. Botswana needs to think carefully about this transformation. The issue is not whether institutions should communicate less. They should communicate better and more openly. The issue is whether independent journalism will retain sufficient space to challenge institutional narratives. A healthy information ecosystem requires both.Public relations should explain what institutions do. Journalism should examine whether what they say corresponds with reality. When a government announces a successful programme, communication can tell citizens what the government says it achieved. Journalism should be able to investigate whether citizens actually experienced that success.When a university announces a research breakthrough, institutional communication can explain its significance. Journalism can ask what the research means, who funded it and what impact will it have. When a corporation celebrates its social contribution, communication can showcase its achievements. Journalism can examine the numbers and ask whether the contribution matches the claims.Such tension is not a weakness in democracy. It is democracy working. The danger lies in allowing one side of that relationship to become overwhelmingly powerful.If institutional communication becomes the dominant source of public information while independent journalism becomes marginal, citizens may receive an extraordinary amount of content while losing something far more important: independent context.The answer is not to demonise public relations. Nor is it to romanticise journalism. Both professions have ethical obligations, and both can fail. The answer is to preserve the distinction between them. Public relations represents institutional interests. Journalism serves the public interest through independent scrutiny.The distinction becomes especially important in an age of artificial intelligence, algorithmic amplification and direct-to-audience communication. The ability to manufacture persuasive content is becoming cheaper and faster.What becomes more valuable is the human capacity to verify, contextualise, challenge and investigate.That is the real contest ahead. The future may not be a battle between journalism and public relations. It may instead be a battle over whether citizens can still distinguish between an institution telling its story and an independent journalist testing that story.If we lose that distinction, we will not necessarily become uninformed. We may become something more dangerous: perfectly informed about what powerful institutions want us to know. And that is not the same thing as an informed public.*Thomas Tlhaloganyo Nkhoma is MISA-Botswana chairpersonAs institutions acquire the ability to publish, broadcast and promote their own narratives directly to the public, the boundary between information, persuasion and journalism is becoming increasingly difficult to defend. Writes THOMAS TLHALOGANYO NKHOMA*
