different agendas and they finally did allow some foreign journalists to ask some broader questions. but it is noticeable that the climate was pretty tight. biden himself i think only took a 30 minute press conference and in the course of that managed to confuse libya and syria, and certainly confused me in the process as why he suddenly took interest in libya. if you take someone like obama at pittsburgh, it would be a lecture lasting 45 minutes to start with and then about an hour and 15 minute questions and he would be taking questions from anywhere around the floor. it was very open. but we are in this covid period and i thinkjournalists collectively have to make sure we come out of it and we don t let politicians use this window to try and permanently change the access we have. i was going to ask, is itjust covid or is it a global precedent for shutting down access? rym, ijust saw you raise your hand. you don t have to raise your hand.
that s really what this event was about. - the fact that it was happening. rym, you were there as well. naomi and steven touched upon this earlier that this groundwork and preparation that goes into the months before a summit like this, but how much journalism can you actually do once you are there? because you are there essentially to ask questions and find out answers. you can actually do a lot ofjournalism but it also means you have to be hustling the entire time. when i say hustling, you also need to be harassing sometimes some of the people that you know. for example, i did get to go to the site where the leaders were meeting, which was, as patrick was saying, 55 minutes drive away, but that s because i had been talking to the elysees folks, french presidency folks, for days about wanting to be
because of course none of the press were allowed in the room. so how easy is it forjournalists who specialise in diplomacy to sort fact from spin? in fact, do the politicians even want them there? unless of course it s to snap them posing grandly on the beach in those ubiquitous family photos. let me introduce you to my wonderful panel of guests. patrick wintour is diplomatic editor at the guardian. naomi o leary is europe correspondent for the irish times. rym momtaz is senior france correspondent at politico and steven erlanger is the pulitzer prize winning journalist and currently chief diplomatic correspondent at the new york times. steven, you ve been covering this week s international diplomacy from your base in brussels. tell us, are you the only journalist left in the city? naomi is here too. part of the problem is that covid has made it very hard to travel. so if you want to go bouncing around, you need to have a whole separate nose for all of the tests.
the contact between journalists and the top leadership and also things like the delegation that countries are allowed to bring with them. so it has been a bit different rather than being gathered together in press rooms and press facilities where everybody has got their laptops and so on, a lot of the summits you are actually in your own apartment covering it from your laptop and coordinating over the phone with people. and sometimes following press conferences and so on over zoom or dipping in on live streams, so quite a different experience. i think there s pros and cons to both. yes, zoom, zoom, zoom. we are all on zoom as well now. rym, i know you were in cornwall for the g7 but where you now? am i back in paris, thank god. got back home. after a long few days on the road and very little sleep. you can be back in your own bed now. patrick, you were there as well i hear?
now on bbc news, the media show. hello. the g7 summit, the nato summit, putin, biden, the world s biggest leaders were face to face in a series of meetings this week. these are some of the most intensely scrutinised meetings you can imagine. and you will have to imagine because of course none of the press were allowed in the room. so how easy is it forjournalists who specialise in diplomacy to sort fact from spin? in fact, do the politicians even want them there? unless of course it s to snap them posing grandly on the beach in those ubiquitous family photos. let me introduce you to my wonderful panel of guests. patrick wintour is diplomatic editor at the guardian. naomi o leary is europe correspondent for the irish times. rym momtaz is senior france correspondent at politico