Editor, Thanks a lot Rwanga Jean-Marie for your letter “Journalists must ask the President pertinent questions”. You are very right and I would actually like to urge our journalists to do their home work on two things. One is knowing what’s happening in the country and the world in general and two, to know what a news conference is. This is because I find some take it as a training course where they come to learn from the President things they should read and research themselves. Actually, you find that most of things are done the opposite way, where journalists should be very conversant and informing the President but you find him informing them instead. It’s very embarrassing for a journalist to be asked something that is public knowledge and he/she is not aware. How then do you expect to challenge the President when he knows more than you do? I think it’s high time the song sung by many leaders of adopting a reading culture be put in practice and start with the journalists because you are informers of the community and definitely you can’t inform when you are not informed yourself. It reminds me of a scenarios when a journalist asked the President about some issue and he could not cite where he got the news and ended up saying that it’s confidential. Ha, how do you read internet news and you say they are confidential when it’s in the public domain? Please don’t misuse the precious time the “Busy man” gives you. It’s of great importance not only to you who attend but to all of us as a nation; especially when you attempt to represent our views. And lastly I think journalists, to a great extent, don’t consider themselves to be part of the society because they tend to go with a negative mind always. I think if you do your work with the target of developing your society and the nation in general. Sometimes you should be contributive as well by sharing your ideas with the President and not only asking silly questions and actually questions with a challenging intention.Thanks, Didas Ndoli.ndoli_didas@yahoo.com
