It’s a long-standing tradition at the State House to invite journalists to provide media coverage for the President’s Meet The People Tour.
Annually, the Presidency sends invitations to media outlets to select reporters and cameramen to accompany the President on the tour to serve as the eyes and ears of the masses.
Sadly, some media houses are currently reassessing whether it’s well worth it to send their reporters on the tour only to find themselves in miserable conditions.
Late last year, the Gambia government Spokesperson Ebrima G. Sankareh was forced to defend the State House against a reporter.
Reporter from one of the newspapers could not hide his displeasure and consternation at the treatment meted out to journalists during the tour and he gave feedback to his bosses.
The reporter was not complaining that the State House should provide them with anything on the tour.
After all, it was the Presidency itself that reneged on some of its promises to media chiefs before they mobilized their men and women.
The reporter’s concern was that some of the settlements that journalists travelled to with the President were far-flung areas.
In some of these cases, journalists had money but weren’t able to find rooms to rent, food to buy, and transport to charter.
This was why many were disappointed in the State House!
You see, there’s what we call Gambian hospitality!
Nobody is forcing the Presidency to do anything for journalists but many expect it to be hospitable to its guests.
Unfortunately anyway, hostility appears to have taken the place of hospitality here.
Reporters had been sending distress calls to their editors, sometime late in the night, regarding accommodation and related issues.
Needless to say, these predicaments were not their making.
In The Gambia, we don’t leave our guests to pass the night in the open air.
We detest our guests going to bed on hungry stomachs.
In short, we never want our guests to suffer from want and lack!
We now know why many reporters and cameramen were reluctant to be part of the Meet The People Tour!