Solana Larsen
I can’t believe it, but the media accreditation office tells me only around TEN journalists have applied for accreditation for the CSW from the entire world. TEN?!
Granted there are many journalists who have all-year press passes to the UN (the permanent people), but you’d think a meeting of this size (I heard 4000 people) would attract more attention. Valerie, the head of the media office, says she remembers a previous CSW event where they had to park a trailer outside just to field the many requests.
“Hey, that’s a good story,” she said. Indeed.
We all know about the inanity of commercial media etc. But hello, women’s rights NGOs – did your press releases get lost in the mail? What’s going on?
Women UNlimited 
Women’s rights NGOs tend to work to a small budget and so focus on consultation with members, identifying the issues, building alliances face to face. This means they often don’t have the human, technological or financial resources to employ media opportunities as strategically as they might. This is where independent media organisations like openDemocracy have an invaluable role to play, in bringing the issues to a much wider audience. I look forward to reading about the contribution of the girls who have come to New York to inform the CSW discussions, which is an essential part of the process.
I am surprised at the lack of coverage by the media about the CSW. I live in New York and I feel like the CSW is a big secret. Not only is there very little coverage about the CSW, there is very little awareness about it. I’m sure there are lots of people who care about women and girls’ issues who have NO IDEA it exists, much less how to follow it or get involved.
I’m so glad to see that you are covering it!
Patti
I’m a photojournalists for New York Indymedia, and I would have loved to cover the conference. Unfortunatly, one requires a passport to enter the UN. Since I am a transgender woman, I am unable to get a passport that will correctly document my gender.
Actually you don’t need a passport at all. I used my driver’s license (maybe you have same problem there). You can get in to the parallel NGO events without being registered for the CSW.