How to make enemies and alienate the international media: the curious case of the Rio IMC
The G20 Team in Brasil worry that the Lula government’s lack of focus on the media does not portend well for the success of this G20.
The barometer of success at any G20 summit lies with the positivity with which the international press corps responds to the announcements of the political leaders. Canny hosts have, in the past, recognised the need to keep the press well-fed and well-lubricated. The International Media Centre (IMC) might be better dubbed the 'International Mood Centre’.
Previous G20 hosts, including Argentina in 2018 and Japan in 2019, laid on a dizzying array of food and drink, including fine wine (in the case of the former) and craft sake (in the case of the latter) alongside never-ending stalls preparing one regional delicacy after another around the clock. These grand spreads are often accompanied by chillout areas adorned with bespoke furniture, entertainment and other novelties redolent of a music festival or Silicon Valley start-up office complex. At the G7 in Quebec in 2018, one famous BBC journalist was overheard describing a contraption that rained maple syrup onto a huge table of desserts as “f***ing ridiculous”.
These eccentricities are, in part, about entertaining and placating the hundreds – sometimes thousands – of tired, fractious and potentially combustible journalists, presenters, researchers, producers and technicians who had travelled many thousands of miles to work punishing hours in a cavernous twilight zone to tight deadlines. They are vital to maintain morale and punctuate long periods of intrigue waiting for something to happen at the summit itself. But they are also an opportunity to celebrate and showcase a country’s culinary heritage to a global audience.
It may sound excessive – even gluttonous – but it has nevertheless long been the unwritten rule of past G20s and G7s that a happy press corps is a secret ingredient for a successful summit. Food shapes these perceptions more than outsiders might realise. IMC veterans reminisce wistfully (or scathingly) about the bountiful generosity (or meagre rations) of summits passim, and have a certain level of expectation that can be easily dashed precisely because of these enduring memories. Treat the press badly, then, and the result can be unedifying.
Roll on 2024 and Brazil’s opportunity to show the global media the culinary and cultural delights on offer, but alas, the hosts seem to have undercooked the pão de queijos.
Instead of a well-renovated sports arena or museum set up to cope with 2000 hungry journalists, the Brazilian government opted for a concrete bunker next door to where the leaders are meeting. This building, laid out with makeshift tables and chairs reminiscent of a primary school set-up for a Christmas nativity, has all the hallmarks of a failure to plan, learn from (or outdo) previous summits.
The press briefing rooms for international leaders are limited in number and size, with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres squeezed into a tiny space with a capacity of under one hundred and largely bereft of a functioning air conditioner.
To disparage the state of the briefing rooms would be perhaps unfair if the remaining facilities were up and running to meet the needs of the international media. Instead, the IMC is accessible for a considerably more limited amount of time than is the norm – opening later, closing earlier, not running 24 hours during the summit peak – and has intermittently functioning wifi, leaving already-despondent journalists despairing at the state of preparation.
However, if any host government should understand the very fundamentals of pleasing the international press, then it is the absolute need to provide access to decent, bottomless coffee and a wide selection of hot food. For a summit centred around sustainability, coffee itself seems to be a finite resource—regularly running out without being replaced. Sadly, for a country that prides itself on the quality of this beverage, the lacklustre filter coffee provided wouldn’t even pass muster in a São Paulo coffee shop. The food consists of little more than a few pastries and cakes, insufficient to sustain a hungry press corps through more than a snack break, not successive mealtimes.
Perhaps this navel gazing focus on the press and their bellies is simply too niche to be of interest to most readers, but the Lula government’s lack of focus on the media does not portend well for the success of this G20.
G20 Team: Alicia Sear-Acinas, Amelia Eveleigh, Ethan Ryan, Gregory Stiles, Grzegorz Stahl, Madeleine Fearn, Matthew Bishop, Imogen Parry, Scarlett Vickers, Shengyao Guo.
Image: Team's own.
