ADVERTISEMENT

5 shortfalls from Akufo Addo's Meet the Press

President Akufo-Addo met the press for the first time this year and some things didn't go on well at the meeting

We look at some of the shortfalls from the otherwise successful event

The ‘lengthy’ opening statement

The President opened the programme with what was considered by many a rather long statement highlighting the social key issues that have happened during his one-year in office.

ADVERTISEMENT

Some journalists complained that the length of the speech by the president made reduced the time for questioning which according to them was the main reason why journalists were invited to the event.

The moderator

The Minister of Information, Mustapha Hamid was the moderator for the programme and to an extent, he failed to live up to expectation.

He was unable to compel journalists to stick to the limit of 'only one question per questioner' and chose a rather undistributed method of calling journalists to ask question based on gender and region.

One questioner, one questioner

ADVERTISEMENT

It was very obvious from the onset that, restricting journalists to this rule was highly unrealistic but the moderator’s initial assurance of enforcing the rule gave many some calmness. But right from the first question, journalists went on to violate the rule to the extent that some went as far as asking three questions.

Quality of questions

It was expected that any journalist who will get the opportunity to ask the president a question on the day would pose a well-researched question to him.

Even though there were some really good questions, things didn’t turn out as we expected as some of the questions were either not well researched or just too shallow for the occasion.

Time constraint

ADVERTISEMENT

It was rather unfortunate that right from the start of the programmes, the moderator kept mentioning that things will have to be rushed because the president had “other state businesses to transact”. The question to ask then is, why will the presidency organize a such an important programme at the time when the president is hard pressed on time and will have to rush through things? Yes, the programme was rushed and that greatly marred its beauty, limiting the number of questions.

JOIN OUR PULSE COMMUNITY!

Unblock notifications in browser settings.
ADVERTISEMENT

Eyewitness? Submit your stories now via social or:

Email: eyewitness@pulse.com.gh

ADVERTISEMENT