HOWEVER, the US media ARE quite visibly here in robust form. While it is true that one tends to hear the buzz of French, Italian and British-English accents much more than the nasal American twang around the media room at the Sandton Convention Center, it would be false to presume absence or apathy on the part of US media.

Two leading US correspondents present at the WSSD sat down with Earth Times on Thursday to discuss American media presence at this year's summit. Rachel Swarns, the Johannesburg bureau chief of the New York Times and Charlayne Hunter-Gault, bureau chief and correspondent with CNN International have both spent the past several years covering news in South Africa.

Swarns, a Johannesburg correspondent for the last three years, has been filing stories for every day of the summit. "The New York Times wants daily coverage, which reflects a sense that this is an important event," said Swarns. "We have been preparing our audience for the summit by carrying special sections. For example, we ran a special edition in the Science section of the Times regarding the summit, which ran last Tuesday. We also ran a series on water, with emphasis on regions most affected by the lack of access to water such as the Middle East, Asia, and Africa.

"The biggest challenge in covering this event is to present its issues in a way that is interesting to readers. That is why we also include features and profiles -- stories that will draw a connection between the summit and our readers."

When asked whether the United States media had a meager presence at the summit, Swarns was quick to counter. "All the major papers are here -- the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, the Boston Globe, Newsday. I feel as though I bump into Americans all the time!"

Hunter-Gault, a former New York Times reporter herself as well as a 20-year veteran of the PBS program the MacNeill/Lehrer Newshour, agreed with Swarns in acknowledging the challenge of presenting the summit's issues in a compelling manner.

"The average American does not know much about what the term sustainable development means," said Hunter-Gault. "Our job is complicated because we have to cover the issues with integrity without rendering them simplistic. I was just talking to one of our editors and I mentioned the term 'NGO' and he looked at me and said, 'What's an NGO?' So, in other words, keeping it simple is tough."

A common practice at UN conferences is for delegates and major groups to use summit-specific vocabulary to identify the problems and solutions related to the issues on the agenda. Terms such as "renewable energy", "Rio +10," and "global apartheid" ? summit jargon that is regularly tossed around at the various roundtable sessions -- probably leave many readers and viewers scratching their heads in question.

"Let's face it -- all this diplo-babble could very well put people to sleep," said Hunter-Gault. "When I say the term 'WSSD', I can just imagine the big yawn among the viewers. It's a very unsexy idea for people to understand. But that doesn't mean that what's happening here is not compelling. Our biggest challenge remains how to make the drama, the suspense, the tensions and the conflicts [at the summit] intelligible to the outside world."

As both Swarns and Hunter-Gault have demonstrated, this Summit gives the American media a chance to educate its audience on the important issues surrounding sustainable development, with the opportunity to dispel the commonly-administered myth that Americans do not care about the environment. Well, at least the Americn media.