Trekking Up The Mountain: Davos Mirrors The Economic Decline
t's that time of the year again. The corporate world's annual trek to the
mountain top in Davos, Switzerland, for the annual meeting of the World
Economic Forum couldn't come at a worse time. The climate is a distressing
combination of economic slowdown, financial stasis and political
volatility-with disagreements over the impending war in Iraq threatening to
sever traditional alliances rather than build new ones.
The media are also challenged by how and what to cover. Most of its big
stars are readying themselves to cover a military conflict, not an economic
one. The issues of globalization that made Davos such a center of collegial
elite conversation and debate have faded from much of the media agenda.
There is only one media story at the moment: Iraq. Forum founder Klaus
Schwab must be pulling out all the stops to get Saddam to stop by. Only
that will get him back in the limelight. Many of the big companies that
seemed in the past so arrogant and self assured in their cocktail parties
and hotel suites are humbler now. Some can't afford to come. "It cost two
much for too little," one executive at a multi-national told me. At least
his corporation is still around. Many aren't.
The business press is in as much trouble as many of the CEOs they used to
glorify. Many have been forced to acknowledge that they had given a free
pass to the Enrons and WorldComs of the world, treating them as if they
represented the Second Coming. A lack of hardnosed reporting by the fourth
estate-they who claim to be watch dogs-is part of the larger crisis of a
lack of corporate transparency and accountability, not to mention ethical
press standards and such basics as accuracy.
Many of these media outlets were covering up corporate crimes as much as
covering them-and now they are getting their just rewards. Knight
Kiplinger, editor in chief of Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine, and
the chief executive of its parent company, told the San Francisco Chronicle
that "the advertising slump of the past two years has pounded every major
business and personal finance publication into unprofitability."
"This is a unique moment," Kiplinger declared. "No major national business
periodical is in the black. No one is covering their expenses."
"If there is a major large-circulation periodical in business and finance
that is profitable, I'd like to know about it," he said. " While some of
his fellow publishers disagreed, there was no dispute that their go-go
years are gone. The economic downturn has hit most media companies hard.
Executives are leaving in droves. No wonder some are looking forward to a
protracted hot war to boost circulation.
Last year when the Forum met in New York City out of solidarity with its
9/11 woes (and because many US execs were scared of flying) media was high
on the agenda. The most visible mogul was Jean-Marie Messier, the suave
multilingual head of Vivendi Universal who sponsored an All-Star evening of
entertainment and pontificated on panels about why being big was best.
Within weeks of his enthusiastic reception, where he was adored by rock
stars and media wanabees, workers at Canal Plus TV in France revolted in
what seemed like an outbreak of class warfare in the streets of Paris only
to put down by the gendarmerie. Messier was soon being accused of being a
mess-of cooking the company books. They still don't know how much money was
flushed away. He tried to ride the storm but was soon out of a job in a
flash. Even the poor man's $10 million dollar apartment was plagued with
problems when it was discovered that it was infested with mould. It is no
wonder that the Forum abandoned the Waldorf and returned to the safety of
ski country.
The Forum used to invited a diverse mix of journalists. Not this year. This
year's media program has been cut back by 30 percent as the WEF struggles
to sustain itself. I know because after three years as an invited media
guest, and even after producing a well received video for WEF's 2002
opening, I was not invited back. Lack of money was the reason given. The
theme this year is "Building Trust," a clear sign that the Forum
understands that the business world which once shined so brightly in those
Alps is not only down in the dumps, but without much respect. Ironically,
the protestors who come each year could not do as much damage as the many
of these businesses have done to themselves.
The media involvement in Davos is a good representation of how the elite
treats working people. I have written about this in the past because I was
struck by how the media landscape was literally, physically divided along
class lines. The working press-the grunts who file daily copy-were stuck in
the dungeon-like basement of the high-tech Congress Center, with its
plethora of conference rooms, meeting halls and executive lounges looming
above. They were crammed into small, smoky rooms in the area typically
used, in Swiss buildings, for fallout shelters. You had to squeeze your way
between the rows of computer screens and reporters babbling in a cacophony
of different tongues. There, behind bomb proof doors, many media drones
seemed tethered to their computers, pounding away to meet deadline cycles.
It's important to note that all of these working class journos had badges
restricting their access to certain Forum events. Thus, much of the copy
they wrote was based on reams of handouts, session summaries and the
snatches of the proceedings they watched on live, closed-circuit TV. The
whole building was quickly awash in tons of background documents and
company promo packets. The airlines would later rack up a fortune in excess
baggage charges for overweight luggage, stuffed with forests' worth of
Davos documents. I nearly suffered a hernia hauling all my booty home. Much
of it, I must confess, remained unread.
A level up, some of the better-known media brands, such as CNN, CNBC and
Reuters, had their own suites and mini-studios, designed to shuttle
interviewees in and out for quick Q&As and pithy soundbites. A
state-of-the-art, user-friendly computer conferencing system with scores of
available terminals made requesting appointments from the high and mighty
easy and efficient-for the media's high and mighty. Outside crews from
lesser media outlets were escorted in for limited shooting on the
conference floor and just as quickly escorted out.
Further up the media food chain, and not confined to offices or routines,
"name" correspondents were given privileged "all access" white badges and
full conference status. The editors and star columnists were labeled "media
leaders" and invited to join key panels to share their punditry with the
crowds. Usually, these were globalization gurus such as the Princeton
economist Paul Krugman and Thomas L. Friedman, both columnists of The New
York Times op-ed page. The more skeptical among us were kept in the seats,
not on the stage. We could ask questions but not offer perspectives.
Finally, at the apex of the heap, were the big media bosses and new media
honchos who were there to do much more than report on the schmoozing. They
wheeled and dealed in separate meetings in nearby well-guarded hotels and
special offices. In years past I met Microsoft chief Bill Gates; Howard
Stringer, the newly knighted head of Sony; Michael Bloomberg, then of
Bloomberg Media; Rob Glazer of Real Networks; Shelby Coffey, no longer at
CNN; and Robert Bartley, the now thankfully retired ultra-conservative
commissar of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page.
Significantly, and not surprisingly, there was no discussion, at any level
of the media pyramid, of the media's role and responsibility in covering
economic issues-nor did any media company take part in the many discussions
of corporate social responsibility.
One of the Forum's Geneva neighbors says the Forum, "will have to go well
beyond stopping top executives fiddling the books. Or so says UNI-the
global union federation for skills and services-which wants respect for
workers and moves to restore faith in the global effort to eradicate
poverty. "Improving corporate governance is urgent if we are to restore
trust in the stock markets of the world," said Philip Jennings, General
Secretary of Swiss-based Union Network International, himself a frequent
participant at Forum meetings.
And what about improving the media and media coverage? How can that be
achieved? For several years I proposed that the Media Channel run a media
forum alongside the economic one to show the interrelatedness. But I was
turned down. There was no interest in building that bridge any more than
there was in dialoguing with the World Social Forum that assembles at the
same time in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Folks there know about the Forum's
difficulties. It is growing while Davos is shrinking and Brazil has moved
to the left. That forum is even planning to discuss life in a post
capitalist world.
Maybe that is what's next. If so, the business press will be the last to know.
(News Dissector Danny Schechter, author of Media Wars: News at A Time of
Terror also writes a daily weblog on http://www.mediachannel.org/)
http://www.presenttensemagazine.org/jan/worldeconomicforumjan22_03.htm
