While the cream of the international technology press gathered last week in Barcelona for the famed 3GSM World Congress, a bunch of us slightly more "second-rate" journalists made our way to a much smaller event in Paris.
The Alcatel-Lucent Forum was a well-organised conference and solutions exhibition with some interesting keynotes - tucked neatly inside the middle of a crisp and bright Parisian winter.
When it came to the actual business of the day (the conference, not the sight-seeing) it was a little too organised.
The movements of our veritable press corps were tightly controlled. This is sometimes handy, especially for us second-raters that might get lost or confused if there isn't an eye-catching young woman with a sign that says "press" constantly in eye-shot.
However, it's also a little restrictive.
Boxed-in
"You notice how they bring us all into this little room and only allow us to talk with each other," an American journalist commented to me at lunchtime.
Controlling the media seems to be a fine art, and a valuable skill.
Dave Glazier, journalist
He pointed to a mirror-wall (or perhaps the room next door to us). "I'd much rather be in there, talking to some of Alcatel-Lucent's customers," he said.
I didn't take his comments personally. But I did take them seriously.
One of the Alcatel-Lucent execs told me the previous day that there were a number of rather-more-first-rate customers at the event, including some large telecoms network operators (even though it wasn't a carrier event).
So I asked to be put in touch with some of these African carriers, not knowing who they were. Getting hold of the full delegate list might be tough, I thought, since "chicken" is sadly the only thing I am capable of asking for in French.
"They haven't yet got back to me on that one," I said at lunch.
"They probably never will," replied my cynical Yank-friend.
AGM barring
This kind of restraint is not dissimilar to a trend in the South African mainstream business media, with Astral Foods following the example of JD Group and barring journalists from its AGM.
Politics is not much better. Language issues also limited my choice of hotel television as I waited for a supper-time engagement, Paris-style. In fact, I was forced to watch George W Bush's Iraqi press conference.
It was quite sad for me to see Bush knew the names of all the reporters, as senior Whitehouse staff had obviously handpicked them. The relationship should never be that close. The same situation - I am led to believe - happens with presidential conferences here.
Controlling the media seems to be a fine art, and a valuable skill. Many local communications representatives from multinational ICT companies have indicated the limitations they suffer when it comes to releasing news, and assisting the media with questions.
Second-raters simply stand no chance against skilful non-communicators from these big organisations. You can't blame us then, can you, for resorting to slightly more devious means?
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