Davos heating up
I received a flurry of emails from the World Economic Forum yesterday. One intriguingly promises a “world-class cultural event” on Thursday night. Usually, I’d take this with a grain of salt. But this event is to be produced by Quincy Jones (who incidentally produced Peggy Lee, who died this week), unquestionably the greatest-ever music producer. Quincy has been a Davos regular for a while, but the cost of bringing any significant artists to the Swiss mountains has always meant he has not exercised his skill in the Kongresszentrum.
More odd was an email encouraging me (and presumably a thousand others) to “help communicate the Forum’s message”. We’re encouraged to write “editorials” on our own concerns, and related to the themes of the Forum’s Annual Meeting. To help us, a list of the Media Fellows this year is attached. The six pages of Media Fellows is the kind of information the Forum would once have been keen to conceal. There are 10 people from Time, 11 people from the FT, five from Fortune and eight from CNN, registered as participants.
In my journalism days, I think I would have cringed at the thought of an onslaught from Davos participants keen to write “editorials”.
Lance, I thought I’d post my wishlist for discussions I’d love to hear the WEF assemblage talk about over lunch or in the corridors.
the tension between fighting crime/terror at home and preserving civil liberties
extending the reach of the world telephone network to the billion people who have never made a call
the potential economic blowback (inflation? recessions? higher taxes?) by the resumption of cold-war era spending on military and anti-terror measures
what they love about New York
I’m not clear on the connection between writing and editorial and having the list of media attendees.
Are they suggesting to write an editorial and send it to the media members for them to push forward? Or are they saying “these important people will be putting out reports, so you should join in”?
Do you want to share the list? Do any of them write anything direct-to-online (blogging or whatever)?