The President of the Ghana Journalists’ Association (GJA), Roland Affail Monney has given an average mark to the just ended presidential-media encounter held on Wednesday at the Jubilee House.
“I think in some instance we did well; in certain instances, the performance was abysmal. I will give it on an average”.
Speaking in an interview with Ibrahim Kwarteng on Radio Ghana’s Current Affairs Programme, ‘BEHIND THE NEWS’, the GJA President said there was an improvement on orderliness compared to the previous meeting since journalists were called to indicate the area of their questions and did not have to scramble to get the opportunity to ask questions.
On the other hand, he expressed that the duration for the questions and answers was short but, Mr. Monney said he was not surprised because the arrangement was for President Akufo-Addo to have an hour to respond to the questions from the media.
He blamed it on the long speech by the president which proceeded into the allocated time.
He explained that 11 ground rules were set which included; journalists not to precede their questions with long preambles, however, was broken by some of them who made did not obey the rules and unduly consumed some time.
He recommended questions such as: the alleged purchase of property at Norway by some authorities, as good in terms of professionalism and quality and another which the relationship between the economic indicators and its reality on the ground, which he said an ordinary Ghanaian would want to ask. He also lamented that some questions did not meet expectations.
Mr. Affail Monney said his main concern was on the questions and stated that “we had labeled this encounter as an hour of redemption for the media because it shared memories of the happenings last year and this opportunity was anticipated to have been used to deodorize the reputational injury we inflicted on ourselves by asking poor questions last year”.
He said the blame of the nature of questions asked by the journalists cannot be attributed GJA since the association’s work ended just at the premises of the Jubilee House
The GJA President said that the association ensured that some media representatives, who were absent last year, were given the opportunity to represent this year.
He stated that “a total of less than ten percent out of the seventy questions were asked”.
In a related development, the Executive Director of the Media Foundation of West Africa, (MFWA), Sulemana Braimah, has described President Nana Akufo-Addo’s Wednesday meeting with journalists as the worst presidential media encounter ever.
“I think that there are quite a number of disappointments and generally we think this is the worst ever,” Sulemana Braimah speaking to an Accra based Television, Citi TV’s “Point of View.”
Mr. Braimah also observed that President Akufo-Addo “clearly wasted too much time” on some of the questions that demanded straightforward answers.
According to Information Minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, in all, there were 70 invited journalists, which translates into a potential 70 questions. However, only 15 journalists asked questions.
Monitored by Nhyira Kwabi/Ruth Abla Adjorlolo
