The World Summit on the Information Society, organised by the United Nations and the International Telecommunications Union, is designed to explore the international shift towards an information-based society. The first part is being held in Geneva this week, and the second phase will be held in Tunis in 2005.
The extensive online media centre provides a catalogue of press releases, fact sheets and news updates throughout the day.
Journalists can also use the online photo library and download streamed video coverage from the major sessions, many of which are being webcast live.
The media team produces statements from all sessions and publishes them in six languages: English, French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese and Arabic.
Gary Fowlie, chief of media and public communications for ITU, told dotJournalism that, although it is becoming more common for major conferences to be webcast, the summit’s media resource has been a particularly big undertaking.
"It’s critical these days," he said.
"If you want to reach people in the information society then you have to use these tools."
The summit has a team of 50 media liaison officers and around 1200 registered journalists are working at the event.
"The technology is not perfect. It’s easier to provide live webcasts - there’s a lot of work involved in recording, archiving and uploading video to the website.
"The site doesn’t offer interactivity though; I would have liked chat rooms and blogs."
More than 10,000 people are attending the conference, representing non-governmental organisations, businesses, UN agencies and countries around the world. 900 media organisations are also represented.
See also:
http://www.itu.int/wsis
Free daily newsletter
If you like our news and feature articles, you can sign up to receive our free daily (Mon-Fri) email newsletter (mobile friendly).
