UN Conference
Oct. 3, 2001

Although the first Mid-Pacific Regional Conference of the United Nations Association of the United States was planned months ago, the recent attacks in New York and Washington D.C. may spark new debate on the topic of the meeting: “Is the U.N. and Endangered Species? Today’s Critical World Issues: the U.N.’s Role in Addressing Them.”

UNA-USA Mid Pacific Regional Conference Chairman Larry Levine thinks that the topic of terrorism will be added to several previously planned discussions, but he is not sure what impact it will have on the sessions. “In some ways, how it will be treated in the conference depends on what happens between now and then,” Levine said.

The conference, which will be held at the Center for Educational Research at Stanford (CERAS), will include discussions on the United Nations conference on racism in Durbin, South Africa, the global health crisis and security issues: peacekeeping and arms control. The cost will be $25 per person, and the event will take place on November 10 from 9:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m.

UNA-USA has 23,000 members across the nation. The organization’s mission is to enhance US participation in the United Nations system and to strengthen that system as it seeks to define and carry out its mission.

In researching this story, I examined the website of UNA-USA, as well as the website of the Midpeninsula chapter. I contacted both of the event organizers, Mary Granholm and Larry Levine. In addition, I contacted the offices of US Senator Barbara Boxer, Congresspersons Tom Lantos and Anna Eshoo, and Assemblyman Joe Simitian. I received responses back from the offices of Boxer, Eshoo and Simitian, saying that they would all be unable to attend and would therefore not be speaking. I contacted Jeffrey Laurenti, the opening speaker, but did not receive a response.

I also considered including a quote from New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s address to the UN yesterday, but decided that it might distract the reader from the focus of the story. I hope that my lead tying the attacks to the conference did not do the same thing.

Since this story is a preview piece, I believe a few short paragraphs is about the right length for a publication like the Stanford Daily or the Palo Alto Daily News. I don’t think that this piece would be any longer than a calendar item for a larger paper, like the San Francisco Chronicle or the San Jose Mercury News. However, a write-up on the conference would require a more in-depth and lengthy piece in any of these publications.