Thursday, April 2, 2009

The Media Center at the G20

It's 09:00 in London, 04:00 in New York City, and 15:00 in Bangkok

There live, at the G20 summit in London.

I just arrived in the Excel Center where the G20 meeting is to begin shortly (it's running 30 minutes late). The G20 Voice bloggers have been allocated a long desk in the center of the "print" section of the Media Center. You could fit two 747 jets inside the media center area of the conference center alone! There are 2,800 journalists and 50 bloggers reporting on the event from inside the summit media center.

At one end of our table is a platform on which about 40 TV cameras are set up. Behind this platform is the "video" section of the media hall. The journalists have small rooms in which they are expected to work. Personally, I think it's nice to be where we are, in the open.

To get here, our bus took us from our hotel to a security zone located some distance away from the Excel Center. First we had our passports checked, and then were taken to a second security point where we received our actual press passes. At that point we got onto a "clean bus" and this vehicle drove us inside the Excel convention center.

2 comments:

  1. Hello Jotman,
    I have only just discovered your blog when I was searching for G20 info on the google blog search. What surprised me mostly is that fact that bloggers were allowed in officially!

    May I ask you how did you achieve to get in those 50 chosen ones? I see you are blogging since 2003 (at least with this blog) which itself is some kind of statement. But what were the criteria to "get in", if you can share it with us, readers? Thank you.

    Good luck in London.
    Jay

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Jay,

    The 50 bloggers were nominated. The nomination process is explained on the G20 Voice website.

    http://www.whitebandaction.org/g20voice

    ReplyDelete

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