President Shimon Peres has found a gracefulness as president that he never had as a politician. Peres was always brilliant, he was never short for words, he can speak forever on any topic without any notes, and get involved in minute details of the topic at hand. As president though, Peres has discovered an aura of respectability, gracefulness and wisdom.
We had a bloggers session with the President. For the first time that I can remember, I had the opportunity to really see Shimon Peres up close, in a fairly intimate setting, to hear him speak in a conversation rather than just saying a speech.
Perhaps it is his age, perhaps the three days of a conference were wearing on him, perhaps it is a combination of a bunch of other factors, but despite his warmth, wisdom and thoughtfulness, I noticed a change in Shimon Peres. I noticed that he seemed disoriented at times, he had a hard time hearing or understanding questions that were asked of him, and he seemed a bit off balance. When someone asked a question, almost every time he leaned over to his aide and asked what the question was. When he stood up he seemed a bit clumsy and disoriented. His mind was as sharp as ever, but it just seemed to me that his age is perhaps starting to catch up with him.Despite that, the event with President Shimon Peres was a wonderful opportunity, and I thank him and the management team of Ruder Finn for arranging it.
The President even invited us all to get together around him for a group picture at the end of the session..
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So, what I'd to know is if anyone had the courage to ask Prez Peres how he gets away with being political in a symbolic and a-polical role, when his predacesors would have been castigated for doing the same.
ReplyDeleteAnd which one is you, Rafi?
ReplyDeleteback row, just to the left of the prez.
ReplyDeleteNo disrespect intended at all for lifeinisrael, but I'm glad that press credentials have not been given to bloggers.
ReplyDeletejosh, why?
ReplyDeleteMany of us bloggers are serious journalists who just don't get paid. My university degree is in journalism.
while I dont know what about this post was different enough than all the others to prompt Josh's comment, while one could say that blogging is a form of journalism, most bloggers do not consider themselves reporters or journalists (obviously Batya not included). We just write - we comment on what we see. We do not usually investigate, we don't report, in the traditional sense of a reporter (though some live blog events which isnt that different from reporting from the field). We just comment on life and events as we see it.
ReplyDeleteThe debate of whether to give bloggers press credentials is not due to the bloggers writing like journalists (when you think of newspaper journalists), but because the media is turning to blogging as a form of commenting on events, and the people are reading blogs. In today's day and age, blogs are used for commenting as much as op-eds, and are competing with newspapers in the field of commentary for the public's attention.