OPINION
Media madness in Manhattan
> BY DANNY SCHECHTER
Copyright © 2002 by The Earth Times. All rights reserved

Media people are doing more than watching or covering the Forum. Many have, for better or worse, become participants as well as objects of discussion and debate. Media exposure made the conference what it is--in one view, a showplace for the socially concerned; in another, a cabal.

At first, the Forum was just a management conference for European businesspeople. Over the years, it began to attract more top executives and CEOs, especially as the global market and then what came to be called globalization became more pervasive. As business in much of the world became the business of the whole world, it lured participants from élites everywhere. Davos was transformed from just another business meeting to a global event and destination, what financier George Soros described to me a few years back as a giant cocktail party attended by heads of state, nongovernmental organizations, UN agencies and an assortment of mandarins including economists, philosophers and social critics. Press attention put the Forum on the map, and its decision to hold its meeting this year in the media capital of the world to show post-September 11 solidarity with New York quickly generated even more attention, especially as parts of New York City were shut down to safeguard the delegates. As critics took potshots at the Forum for its exclusivity or pooh-poohed its pretensions, as thousands marched against it denouncing what they believe is its grip on the world agenda--as well as denouncing the ritzy hotel that housed it as the "Walled-Off Astoria"--controversy mounted. And there is nothing the press loves more than controversy. Most of the media lined up behind the Forum and called the protesters "knuckleheads," "terrorists" and worse. Nevertheless, the conflict made good copy, as confrontations always do.

Judging by my experience at previous meetings in Davos, the working press actually had it better in New York. In Davos, reporters labored in a sub-basement, the building's windowless bomb shelter. They were supplied with press releases and video feeds, which they turned around with all deliberate speed and pumped back out like an engine room drives an ocean liner. Their entry passes were coded to keep them down below in the journalistic equivalent of steerage.

Upstairs, both at Davos and in New York, invited editors and media-machers--myself among them, can you believe?--were free to cruise, attend sessions, buttonhole big shots and otherwise work the room. Luncheons, coffees and dinners funded by the good folks at Coca-Cola allow informal access to heads of state such as the premier of Serbia and the likes of Bill Gates. It is heady, informative and fun to have breakfast with the King and Queen of Jordan and dinner with Kofi Annan!

The only problem is that, at this event, more time is devoted to the kinds of social and political issues that rarely get covered on business pages, that tend to deal more with the ups and downs of the market than the larger social context in which markets operate. Ironically, journalists may not have the space or the outlets willing to cover these issues, nor are many capable of doing so. Mitchell Kloss, a producer for Channel One News and The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, admits in the LA Times: "We journalists--particularly TV news people--have done a terrible job of reporting on what globalization is actually doing to this single, shrinking world we all share... in terms of globalization, we seem to have failed to point out something essential: To be for or against globalization implies that we can control it. From what I've observed, the salient feature of globalization is loss of control." Adds International Herald Tribune Hong Kong-based columnist Philip Bowring about the Forum: "At least as big a problem in New York was the under-representation of non-western and especially non-English language press."

Virtually every one who was seriously engaged with an issue at the Forum had complaints about the lack of serious ongoing media attention. Bill Gates concluded his plenary appearance by appealing for more public awareness, an implicit acknowledgment that the public is being told little about the global health issues he has personally thrown $24 billion at. Rock star Bono, whose every burp is detailed by a thousand gossip columnists, talked about how the debt cancellation issue he is championing was only given attention after he had his picture taken with the Pope. And the AIDS activists and other protesters outside the Waldorf who marched to get their message into the media, instead had their protest caricatured in many accounts.

While the Forum focused on the developing world, the World Social Forum (WSF), a parallel forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, that provided a platform for civil society groups, NGO's and political movements in the developing world, was all but ignored by media outlets. The Earth Times did an excellent job of covering the WSF and of including diverse views. The New York Times pooh poohed the WSF that drew 60,000 participants and honored an American, MIT's Noam Chomsky, with a hero's welcome. When I asked Chomsky about the Brazil-based coverage of the 'newspaper of record,' he was dismissive. "I read the New York Times reports on Porto Alegre when I got back. The reporter is either an imbecile, incompetent, or following orders."

You don't have to be Chomsky to recognize that globlization has shifted power from the local and national levels to the global stage. It is precisely for that reason that more specialized organs like The Earth Times are needed to fill the gap by offering balanced and independent reporting and views about the changing configurations of the international community. At the same time, I must say for the record that I didn't have the same experience that led to The Earth Times' exclusion. While I had some initial tensions with the Forum's media chief Charles McClean--who, I think, initially mistrusted my motives and the Mediachannel's more critical edge--he was open to my request and invited me to participate.

One has the sense, though, that certain élite institutions don't really want too much public participation.There is, unfortunately, a logic to this attitude that may well be built into the globalization process itself, as John A. Powell and S. P. Udayakumar noted in the political journal "Poverty & Race." The masters of the economic universe may not want informed citizens, they say, because key decisions are made today outside of elected political bodies. "There is an abiding belief that democracy must be limited because it interferes with the private decisions of market experts, thereby reducing wealth and capital," they argue. "People are now brought together as consumers but kept apart as citizens. We speak of an expanding global market, but a diminishing public space, and we hardly speak at all of citizen participation." This may be a factor behind the rise of the World Economic Forum and its closed character which exudes élitism even though the discussions themselves are open and have input from advocates of every stripe. Finding a balance will be a challenge.

While Davos in Davos or Davos in New York does not open a new chapter in democratic discourse, it is not set up to. Any private meeting costing $22,000-plus for many to attend can hardly be a monument to populism and glorious diversity. But what seemed clear is that the organizers realized that business could no longer be conducted in a cocoon, that they needed to grapple with the concerns of environmentalists, social justice and human rights advocates. They opened their doors to voices that are often excluded from the media spotlight because they wanted to learn what their critics think, and realized that their own success depends, in part, on how they manage the process of change. The truth is that while the world has changed, the media has changed less despite all the hype about September 11 ushering in a new age. Stories are still given a national focus even as decisions at the local level often are affected and limited by machinations at a higher level.

Media Moguls And Mavens
The media have long been part of the world of élites, so I'm not surprised that ABC's Peter Jennings, CNN's Christiane Amanpour and Garrick Utley and CBS's Tom Fenton were on hand. CNBC went live with a studio set up outside the plenary ballroom. PBS's Charlie Rose moderated a panel; other high-profile reporters were panel participants and, hopefully, their reporting will be informed by all the expertise on the premises and convey some of the real enthusiasm as well as the high quality of much of the discussion. As it turns out, business people made up less than half of the crowd at the Forum. Fully 350 "media and opinion leaders" were on hand, from globalization booster Tom Friedman of The New York Times to Lewis Lapham, editor of Harper's, who has skewered Davos in the past, to Arianna Huffington, who moves gracefully through these circles but keeps a critical eye on them. Bill Gates was there, though he was unwilling to discuss his trial on charges of violating antitrust laws and preferred to talk about the heath causes funded by his foundation. Jean-Marie Messier, head of Vivendi Universal; Terry Semel of Yahoo; Nobuyki Idei, CEO of SONY; Sir Howard Stringer, head of SONY USA and ex CBS president; Steve Case, head honcho of AOL Time Warner; Jeffrey Katzenberg of Dreamworks; and many of their counterparts from across the globe were also on hand. It was a little like seeing one of those media ownership charts come to life, and it was good to see lively disagreements erupt in this group of smooth talkers and media managers.

What surprised me was the intense concern about the dumbing down of news and the fusion of news biz with show biz. The only real defense of 'bottom line über alles' came from media moguls in countries that lack much of a tradition of business being socially responsible.

A few days before the conference, the London-based management consultancy and public-interest-group SustainAbility issued a report charging that media companies are among the least transparent and accountable businesses in the US. It's good to know that the debate about media also rages at the top.

The World Economic Forum is not a World Media Forum--not yet, anyway--but it recognizes its responsibility to educate the press and to press it to get engaged. My question is: How can we extend this debate and encourage media people and institutions to play a more positive role in changing the world rather than sucking up to the powerful who want to keep it the same?

Danny Schechter is executive editor of Globalvision's MediaChannel.org. His latest book is 'News Dissector: Passions, Pieces and Polemics 1960-2000,' from Akashic Books