Charles McLean, the Forum's director of communications, told The Earth Times that, from his perspective, moving the Annual Meeting to New York means a "chance to raise our profile" and he promised there would be "great media all over the meeting."

In comparison with last year, he said, there would be far more media people accredited to the meeting: some 400 "reporting press" and another 400 "participating press" people, he said, in contrast with about 300 in each group last year in Davos. The "participating press," he explained, have access to the entire meeting.

Until now, McLean continued, "reporting press" people have worked in the basement press room at the meeting site and, in addition to covering news conferences, had the opportunity to "buttonhole" delegates between sessions to help flesh out their stories. But no longer, he said.

While the WEF Annual Meeting is taking place in the Waldorf-Astoria hotel, the "reporting press" will be able go get no closer to the participants than across the street, in the Intercontinental Hotel. There the media center will be located, some (but not all) sessions of the meeting will be "piped in" via closed-circuit television, and all press conferences will be held.

For several years, prominent media people, among them William Safire and Thomas Friedman of The New York Times, have played a high-profile role at the Annual Meetings, alongside the corporate executives, government representatives and academics who are its other participants.

"Non-participant" press people will have no direct access to the Waldorf-Astoria or to the meeting participants, McLean said, adding that this arrangement was at the request of the participants themselves, who, he said, "say there is too much media" at the Annual Meetings.