We are here in Geneva this week training Public Information Officers for the UN who work for UNHCR – the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
These people have come to Geneva from all over the world – Congo to Iran to Russia to Southeast Asia and so on.
The daily are exposed to some of the most important stories there are.
Up until now, the job of the PIO was to generate press releases and hope against hope that CNNÂ or The BBC might send a crew to Somalia or Tunisia or Libya.
They might, but then again, they might not.
Why should global news coverage be dependent upon the whims or financial problems of a ‘news organization’?
It is far easier to equip the people who are actually living and working there, and who know the stories so well – to shoot and edit their own work and then send that out both to news organizations, but also to the world at large, via the web.
And that’s what we’re doing.
