President's Message
By Alan Capper

February 2006

Once again a happy and successful new year to all of our members.

Mayor Giuliani appointed New York City the center of the universe. For those of us who live and work here you can understand why he did. New York remains one of the prime reporting locations of the world, a major part of the global economy, the entertainment industry, home to the United Nations and headquarters to some of the world’s great corporations. Yet it can be one of the more challenging locations for foreign journalists to work in. To find their way around, to penetrate the occasionally baffling U.S. bureaucracy, and to make sense of this fascinating multi-ethnic city.

This is where the Foreign Press Association can help. Because of its solidly established reputation, most organizations are prepared to take a telephone call from the FPA. Indeed, as we have seen in recent years many organizations approach us to present opportunities to provide information that we can turn into usable copy or broadcast material. UPS and Citibank are very good examples of this.

I would really advise members to look carefully at all the program invitations that we will be sending out this year. Some of them may not seem to be immediately relevant to what you are covering, but it may be worthwhile thinking twice before you decide not to attend.

Last year, for example, our Director Suzanne Adams put pressure on me to attend two events which did no immediately excite me. The first was a private briefing by senior executives of Estee Lauder, and the second was a visit to Grand Central Terminus, which turned out to be more exciting than I could have imagined. To my surprise I had two good radio stories from the Lauder briefing about the growth of the male grooming market, and the development of new women’s products. The Grand Central Terminal tour turned out to be extremely valuable. To go ten stories beneath the concourse to see a secret railway station once used by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and the huge generators looking like something from a science fiction movie was really memorable. Again it gave me a lot to talk about to my late night radio audience in London.

Those of us who work alone as individual correspondents in this city know that it is good to have assistance with access, and this is what the FPA provides. It is unlikely that any of us individually would have been able to set up the Grand Central tour or receive private briefings from Citibank and UPS.

This year, with the appointment of a new executive committee all ExCom members who have been requested to produce strong, relevant and compelling program concepts for members to use as raw material for their coverage from New York will support the role of the new program chair.

2006 will offer a continuing range of New York events that will challenge us to interpret to our audiences abroad. These will range from the state of corporate America, highlighted by the decline in the fortunes of several major corporations, the continuing changes in the city under the Bloomberg administration, the development of the NYPD counter-terrorism group, and the continuing disagreements over the progress of the WTC site.

For those of us who cover the arts there will be Julia Roberts on Broadway for the first time in here career, and other great openings, the new gallery and museum exhibitions to the funding problems and production challenges of the Metropolitan Opera. In addition to this let us not forget what goes on in the boroughs outside Manhattan, with their diversity of cultures and events.

Apart from all this there are the social changes, the gentrification of the city, and the astonishing contrasts in life styles here. New York now has the biggest gap between the rich and the poor in America, and most of us can see evidence of this every day. All things considered it is not surprising that to be stationed in this city is one of the most desirable postings that a foreign correspondent can have.

I believe that the Foreign Press Association is much more than an adjunct to these activities, and with an expanded program in 2006 we will help to provide you with more opportunities to really express the spirit and driving force of New York as the ‘Capital of the universe.’