24 journalists in Washington for global reporting tour
TWENTY-FOUR journalists from Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe are in Washington at the invitation of the US Foreign Press Centre for a global reporting tour focused on the 2016 elections in the US.
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Dubbed, “Nuts & Bolts of a US Election”, the reporting tour, which starts in Washington DC, will end in Indianapolis, Indiana on May 5, 2016, with the primary election taking place in Indiana on May 3.
Why the tour
The tour is aimed at helping foreign journalists to better analyse the US national electoral process, as well as do more in-depth features that explain to their readers/audiences, the American voter and the unique democratic political system.
The selection procedure included countries in which the promotion of free and fair elections is a high foreign policy priority, others where there is misinformation or misunderstanding about US political processes, and/or from countries with significant limits on freedom of the press.
The tour is designed to explain the US electoral process, to include how citizens engage in politics at the national, state, and local levels, the role of Congress in US policymaking, and the key US foreign policy priorities and accomplishments in the last year of the Obama Administration.
Briefing journalists at the Foreign Press Centre, the Director of the centre, Madam Orna Blum, said the tour would include traditional briefings and interviews with academic experts and party officials.
Madam Blum said the goal was to gain access to campaign rallies hosted by the candidates, and to interact face-to-face with voters from diverse communities.
Speaking on federalism and other aspects of the US Government, politics, culture and society, the President of the Capital Communications Group Inc, Mr Akram R. Elias, explained that the US Government did not have a national central government.
“Never think of the US Government as a national central government. We do not have a national central government in this country. We call the US Government a federal.
“So, basically, the word federal and US become synonymous… State Government is the basic unit, the corner stone by which the US Government was built and managed,” he explained.
He said the state government created local government within their respective territories and delegated powers to them, describing the process as decentralisation.
Giving a historical perspective of the US Government, Mr Elias explained that the US Government came into being, to be managed by all the states together.
He further explained that the founding of the US Government was based on four main pillars and named them as defence, monitory policy, foreign affairs and regulation of commerce between the states.
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