I really want to do my master's project on the UN - specifically on the Millennium Development Goals, and the impacts of the edits that John Bolton made to the outcome document draft a week before the summit. All the hullaballoo about his edits died down as soon as the Summit was done last month, and I want to know why, and what the document that was approved means for developing countries. BUT. . . apparently, master's projects on topics like this aren't done at the J-School. I can kind of see why. . . because unless I were to take a trip to Africa, the story would seriously lack a human element. But I want to do it!
Or barring that, my other option is to try to figure why the press is so credulous when it comes to covering the UN. Apparently, if you have a UN pass, you can walk around quite freely. So, why does the press not take advantage of this to do a little digging, to find out what is really going on there? The press seemed to wake up while covering the Oil-for-Food scandal, but everything seems to have died down again after that. But then, even this is a vague topic, not a story idea, since I'm not starting out with any sort of premise - I can't very well start off saying that the press is credulous, because then no press person will talk to me.
And barring that, I have another topic that I will definitely pursue, at some point. This is looking at church planters - people who leave their home churches, and go out to start up new churches, either in a different neighbourhood, or a different city, state or even country. This would look at the challenges they face, where their funding and other resources come from, why they do it, and what happens at the end of it. When I tell my professors about this topic, their faces light up. And I think it would be a great story. But, while I can do this story on my own at any time, doing the UN story requires credentials, and I can get a UN press pass as long as I'm at Columbia. Hence, I want to do the UN story.
What do I do??!?!?
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5 comments:
Erm. The UN Story?
~FMP
The human element, the human element! Oh, what's my human element?
How's about you find yourself a tiny NGO that was involved in pressing for the UN not to accept the 'edits' and look at the 'human element' of the boss of the NGO as he (she?) struggles against the imperialist might of the UNited States. LIke with the church planters, you can look at how the NGO gets its money, how it perceives its role in the bigger scheme of things. Maybe one of those church diggers could be a NGO (although someone in a book I read called 'Toward a New Common Sense' (catchy title but impenetrable prose) said that teh church is more like a TNC (transnational corporation) than an NGO. Nice I thought).
So dig up a lonely, chain smoking NGOer who loves the people of ths world.
I have actually managed to do something similar to what you've suggested. I'm looking at faith-based organisations, possibly one or two, that are lobbying the UN, and their role and their struggles and efforts to cut through the bureaucracy.
:-)
great minds think alike hey? This latin man must have a few grey cells....
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