Mahama’s presser remarkable act of courage but… – Pratt Pratt

Editor-in-chief of the Insight Newspaper, Kwesi Pratt Jnr says President John Mahama’s press conference with the media last Tuesday was a notably outstanding one.

In Mr Pratt’s view, for the President to allow questions to be thrown at him from the media without reference to a note or his ministers was impressive.

“To get up stand in front of microphones and say throw any question at me is a remarkable act of courage,” Mr Pratt said on Radio Gold’s ‘Alhaji and Ahaji’ programme.

“I was highly impressed by the fact that the president stood up and perhaps without preparation and so on said ask any question you want to ask and questions were fired sometimes from persons who were known to the very hostile to his administration and without reference to his ministers, he answered those questions. I got the impression of a president who was on top of his brief,” he added.

He however said he had problems with the style with which the press conference was held.

According to him, providing a specific module for the press conference would have made it possible for several other pressing national issues to the addressed.

“I must point out that there were problems with the press conference and the first problem is a problem with the style.

“Because it did not provide a focus for questioning, what happened was that the media then focused attention on immediate and perhaps sensational issues of the day,” he said.

He indicated that there are many issues in the arts and culture sector, sports, tourism, agriculture and many more that the media could have questioned the president on, but they failed to do so.

“As far as I’m concerned here was a huge opportunity to put the President on the spot with anything or everything and yet some of the very critical areas were not touched at all in this press conference.

“I consider that to be a defect of style. A defect that arose from a style that was very impressive,” he added.