Members of the Executive Mansion Press (EMP) were over the weekend left in the cold as all efforts to have been granted an interview following the end of a long cabinet meeting presided over by President George Manneh Weah on the much-anticipated outcome of the roadmap.The journalists who were instructed by the Deputy Press Security, Smith Toby to organize themselves in order to speak with the presiding described the behavior of the office of the President as sheer disregard to the assigned reporters of the Executive Mansion who failed to exercise in similar manner the courtesy exchanged between the Executive Mansion and reporters.
According to our reporter who is also assigned at the Executive Mansion, the President and all his cabinet officials escaped using the first floor exit through the hall while the media were posted on the second floor awaiting the official outcome of the meeting from Information Minister Len Eugene Nagbe or President Weah as was transmitted to the media thus precipitating their wait.
“While waiting, we saw Minister Nagbe but he reneged to brief the media and said Smith Toby who was already with us would have addressed the media. Few reporters reluctantly granted Smith Toby’s interview while most of us did not on grounds that Smith was not inside for the meeting and besides that, we felt we spent our entire day here because of them. If the decision to speak to the media was cancelled, it would have been better that they told us so that we could leave ahead of time,” some aggrieved reporters complained.