| The
World Economic Forum has barred The Earth Times
from attending its upcoming Washington meeting.
The decision was communicated to the newspaper
by the Forum's managing director, Donna Redel.
The decision to bar The Earth Times from covering
the Washington meeting appeared to be endorsed
by the organization's founder Klaus Schwab, and
by the Washington meeting's co-chairs Rajat Gupta--managing
director of McKinsey & Co., and Thomas Donohaue,
president and CEO of the US Chamber of Commerce.
In
her letter to Earth Times editor-in-chief Pranay
Gupte, Redel said: "I am writing on behalf of
the Forum regarding your request to attend our meeting
in Washington. At this time, it would be best for
everyone to have a "cooling off " period.
I recognize that you have a long-standing history
of attending the meeting, but the events of the recent
past need to recede and for all to re-establish a
mutual sense of trust and goodwill."
Gupte
said: "This
is simply outrageous. Donna Redel, who should
know better, is barring
a legitimate news organization from covering
an event at which public figures will be speaking.
If this isn't illegal, it's pretty close to
it."
Rajat
Gupta, managing director of McKinsey & Co.,
is co-chair of the Washington meeting of the
World Economic Forum. The U. S. Chamber of
Commerce, headed by Thomas Donahue, is the
local host, and the meeting is held on the
premises of the Chamber, just across from the
White House. Calls to Gupta and Donahue were
not returned. Andrew Giangola, head of media
relations at McKinsey, said in an e-mail Thursday
afternoon that Gupta was in California, and
that McKinsey was preparing a response to the
Earth Times.
Donna
Redel's reference to "events of
the recent past" appared to be the World
Economic Forum's annual meeting in New York
in January 2002. The Earth Times newspaper
published daily editions at the meeting. One
of its news stories reported on how the international
media were upset at the Forum for severely
limiting access to the meeting. Forum officials
asked the Waldorf=Astoria hotel--where the
meeting was held--to suspend room delivery
of The Earth Times, which the paper had received
permission from the Forum and for which the
paper had paid for. Copies of The Earth Times
were also seized from the hands of Earth Times
employees by Forum officials in the full view
of scores of media personnel. Forum officials
later denied that their actions had ever occurred,
suggesting that hundreds of members of the
international media who were witnesses had
been collectively lying.
The Earth Times has been in existence since
1991. Louis Silverstein, former assistant managing
editor of the New York Times, is executive
editor. Staff contributors include Tom Wicker,
Paul Hofmann, Selwyn Raab and John Corry, all
formerly of the New York Times; and Michael
Littlejohns, a veteran diplomatic correspondent
at the Financial Times. The editor-in-chief,
Pranay Gupte, is a columnist for Newsweek International,
and was a staff reporter and foreign correspondent
for the New York Times for almost 15 years.
He is the author of six books, and also a lifetime
member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
The
Earth Times as appeared as a daily newspaper
at most
major UN conferences since 1991, and
at other global meetings, including the World
Trade Organization's ministerial meeting in
Qatar recently. It published a daily newspaper
at Davos 2001 in Switzerland, where Professor
Klaus Schwab--founder and president of the
World Economic Forum--hailed the newspaper
as "unique and contributing to the enhancement
of the Davos Experience."
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