LEBANONESQUE

Impressions, views, and steam-blowing by a lonesome cowboy.

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Ziads Case: Appoint ONE spokesperson




PM Seniora/Saniora just said the authorities are “close” to finding the killers of the two Ziads (Ziad Ghandour and Ziad Qabalan). Two days ago, his own Defense Minister said that the killers are “known”.

OK, maybe they “know” but have yet to “find” them. Nevertheless, this is the kind of crap that keeps the worst rumors afloat, and does not gain the government badly needed respect.

Furthermore, Saniora and other officials express themselves via leaks, private interviews and press releases. For stupid leaks by the police, see my previous post on this horrible crime. It is high time we adopted, on vital matters, western/anglo style press conferences.

We need a high ranking official, in this case the PM himself, or a Minister (Justice Rizk or Interior Sabeh), to be the point man on the case.

This senior point man needs to be out in public, live, in prime time every day to update us OFFICIALLY AND CREDIBLY on what is known and what is not, and to ANSWER questions from the press.

There is no better confidence/respect builder than a high level official looking the camera/people in the eye and being forward. Unreadable/unread press statements from different offices is useless, if not counterproductive.

To repeat, when 2 (or more) government people say different things, the rumormongers have a filed day.

Furthermore, people need to know exactly what progress is being made. The we’ll-tell-you-when-it’s-all-solved thing, after 56244 sterile investigations, does not work any more.

Well, that’s my easy way for officials to gain credibility and respect, calm spirits, and offer more accountability.

It’s simple and the benefits are huge compared to current practice. There is no downfall, and no one will argue its constitutionality, and no UN resolution required. Think they’ll do it?

1 Comments:

<< Home