WE were once famous for copper, Aphrodite and kebabs, but now the buzzword in Cyprus is Kofi Annan and his referenda.
Teams of photojournalists, cameramen, anchor women and techs have poured into Cyprus the last few days from all over the world to cover the island’s single most important referendum on the UN Secretary-general’s reunification plan.
Anglo-American media outfits have sent their hacks over to cover the historic referendum while countries as cold as Sweden and far away as Japan have also sent representatives to the island of love.
International crews swamped Nicosia’s Ledra Street yesterday catching passers-by for a quick chat with the mike.
Turkey’s TRT had their uplink outside the Nicosia Municipality while reporters from Greece’s ERT, Mega and Alpha channels and Reuters were seen floating around with cameras at hand.
The corridors of the Hilton Hotel, Holiday Inn and Saray Hotel have been beehives of activity in the run-up to the referenda, filled with smartly clad world-weary reporters and kaki trousered technicians… and occasionally the opposite.
With Cyprus’ acceding to the EU in just six days, all eyes are on the people for the result of the international community’s immense effort to achieve a solution before May 1, while all cameras face the Green Line.
The European Broadcasting Union has set up a fully equipped feed point opposite the Greek Cypriot side of the Ledra Palace checkpoint, from where TV correspondents can feed their stories from live positions facing the buffer zone.
EBU producer Francesca Scott told the Cyprus Mail that about 100 to 150 international correspondents were in Nicosia for the referendum. There are also 10 mobile uplinks constantly moving around, beaming reports to outer space and back.
Many of the bigger channels have their own satellite dishes. The BBC has eight foreign correspondents, including Brian Hanrahan, representing a number of BBC programmes. Brent Sandler from CNN International, Keith Graves from Sky News and Mehmet Ali Birand from CNN Turk are all here, along with hacks from Germany, Italy, Canada, Lebanon, Japan, Dubai, Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Russia and Spain, and that’s just for television.
Most channels will run live positions from the EBU Satellite News Gathering set-up or outside the bullet-ridden Ledra Palace Hotel on the Green Line today to report on the referendum. For the papers, a Press Centre has been set up at the Nicosia Conference Centre, where reporters have access to computers and the World Wide Web.
Many of the TV crews will stay on after the referendum to cover feature stories on EU accession, while enjoying a spot of sun with the prospect of light showers.
