Behind the scenes with The World’s team at the UN General Assembly
Follow three journalists from PRX’s daily, international news show, The World, as they cover one of the biggest news events of the year.
By Carolyn Beeler, Maria Elena Romero and Shirin Jaafari
For several days each September, New York becomes the center of the diplomatic universe when it hosts the United Nations General Assembly. World leaders representing nearly every nation have a chance to address a global audience, with hundreds of side events and bilateral meetings taking place in the wings.
Reporters Carolyn Beeler, Maria Elena Romero and Shirin Jaafari were there covering the gathering for The World. Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at two days of their reporting.
Tuesday, Sept. 24, Day 1 of the high-level speeches at the 74th UN General Assembly
With Carolyn Beeler and Maria Elena Romero
8 am: Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and US President Donald Trump are set to take the stage on the first day of high-level speeches at the UN, so the media is here in full force.
Carolyn arrives at the UN at 8 am to go through special security screening for journalists and set up in a packed media tent erected on the UN lawn. From the media tent, she can watch and record the speeches and meetings happening across the UN on big-screen TVs and through the UN’s sound system.
9 am: The first day of high-level speeches start. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has been enveloped in controversy for his handling of massive fires in the Amazon rainforest, so The World’s team decides to focus its coverage that day on his speech, paying special attention to how he defends his environmental record.
Carolyn watches and records the speech from the media tent, then calls up a Brazilian scientist and reads scientific reports to fact-check some of Bolsonaro’s claims about the Amazon rainforest.
Meanwhile, Maria Elena watches Bolsonaro’s speech online from a Starbucks nearby so she can quickly dart out after the speech ends to interview Dinaman Tuxa, a Brazilian indigenous leader, for his reaction to the speech. (You have to have credentials to get into the UN, and security lines to enter can be long, so sometimes it’s necessary or just easier to do interviews offsite.)
After her interview of Tuxa, Maria Elena navigates security and heads back to the UN where she and Carolyn select pieces of tape to send to a producer in Boston, who then lines them up for their interview with fill-in host Carol Hills.
1:30 pm: Maria Elena and Carolyn call in to the Boston newsroom for an interview with Carol Hills. They do the interview from the lawn in front of the UN, which is quieter than the media tent and UN assembly hall. In the interview, Carolyn fact-checks Bolsonaro’s speech and Maria Elena reports on the reaction from indigenous leaders she’s spoken to. Carolyn records their end of the interview and sends it to the Boston newsroom to be combined with the studio recording so both ends of the conversation are in good sound quality. (A tape sync, in radio lingo.)
Maria Elena files a script, interview quotes and photos for a web story. Editors in Boston write an online story with the team’s reporting.
3 pm: The World airs live from Boston.
4 pm: Carolyn interviews Gaston Browne, Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, about the country’s recovery from the devastation caused by Hurricane Irma in 2017 and his reaction to the UN’s Climate Action Summit, held the previous day. Quiet spaces at the UN are hard to find, so Carolyn and Maria Elena (who photographs the interview) commander a delegates-only meeting room for 20 minutes to do the interview.
Evening: Back at the hotel after a quick dinner, Carolyn cuts down the interview with Browne from about 20 minutes to roughly 6 so it will be ready to air on the next day’s show. She also starts to do research and reporting on a big United Nations report on oceans and the cryosphere that will be released the next day. Both will air on The World the next day.
Wednesday, Sept. 25, Day 2 of high-level speeches at the 17th UN General Assembly
With Shirin Jaafari
When preparing to cover the United Nations General Assembly for The World, Shirin had envisioned reporting a story about the new limitations that the US government had imposed on Iranian diplomats. Tensions between the two countries were high and earlier in the summer, the State Department had ordered new travel limitations that confined the Iranian delegation to a handful of New York City neighborhoods.
So Shirin discussed this story with her editors and they agreed. Shirin planned to report the story on Wednesday, September 25th.
But as it’s often the case in the news business, most planning goes out of the window the moment a reporter steps out of the newsroom.
A bombshell report dropped on Tuesday night. US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced an impeachment inquiry into President Trump’s dealings with Ukraine. That meant Shirin’s original assignment for Wednesday had to change. She was now tasked with finding out how the news of possible impeachment is being received in the hallways of the UN.
8 am: Shirin arrives at an almost empty media tent at the UN. She gets on the phone with her editors in Boston to try and map out the best way to approach the story. She had to walk the hallways and talk to delegates.
8:30 am: Shirin is inside the UN building speaking with delegates. They tell her they are focused on the General Assembly and try not to let the news change their plans.
9:40 am: Shirin attends a press conference by the Saudi minister of state, Adel al Jubeir. She tries to ask him to comment on the Trump impeachment news but the minister doesn’t respond.
10 am: Shirin listens in on a press brief by Federica Mogherini, the EU’s outgoing foreign policy chief.
10:15 am: Shirin bumps into Mogherini in the ladies’ restroom at the UN! Does a double-take and walks up to her to see if she would comment off the record. She doesn’t.
1 pm: By this time Shirin has written up her reporting and gets in touch with a producer in Boston who will be in charge of putting everything together. Shirin connects with the Boston studio and records her interview with host Marco Werman. She files her tape to a producer in Boston who will edit and make it ready for air.
3 pm: The World airs live in Boston.
3:30 pm: Shirin has a very quick lunch and gets ready for more interviews in the evening.
5 pm: Shirin and Maria Elena rush to the Roger Smith Hotel in New York City for an interview with Hatice Cengiz, the fiancée of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi who was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Turkey last October.
6 pm: Shirin interviews Lina al Hathlool, sister of Saudi women’s rights activist Loujain al Hathlool who has been in prison in Saudi Arabia for more than a year. Al Hathlool tells Shirin her sister has been tortured and threatened with rape.
7 pm: Shirin makes her way back to her hotel to have dinner and get ready to do it all over again tomorrow!
Editor’s Note: The World is a non-profit news organization partially funded by listener support. This holiday season, all donations to The World will be doubled by NewsMatch, a national campaign supporting nonprofit news organizations through the end of 2019. Support reporting trips like this one by donating today!
