BY TONY IYARE

THE  news meeting of The New York Times Foreign Desk in this oval office presided over by Susan Chira, the most senior editor on this wet Wednesday, was brisk, businesslike and incisive. Appointed foreign editor of one of America’s most prestigious newspapers on January 2004, Chira who sat at the head of the conference table left no one in doubt that she was in charge.

In a week largely dogged by sex scandals involving randy big fishes and only punctuated by President Barack Obama’s epic roadmap for trouble-shooting the intractable Middle East crises and the impending visit of Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu to Washington, the media was obviously locked in a haul.

All the significant feeds from the newspaper’s rich array of correspondents spread across the world listed in a four page guide were digested, evincing its dominance of the reportage of foreign affairs even when many of its closest competitors have had to cut down their offices abroad because of financial constraint.

Straddling between the mainstream and social and popular media, The New York Times has kept its business above waters. In spite of the low profile in the reporting of Africa by others, the paper reputed for recruiting the bulk of its reporters from top Ivy leagues – Harvard, Princeton and Yale, remains one of the very few American newspapers with four bureaus on the continent.

Soon it was time to preview the news pictures from a 42-inch screen behind, reinforcing the changing face of the modern newsrooms now adorned with laptops, iPads, iPods, digital cameras and pre-press machines and so on. Its expansive online and video section restates its vision of buying into the gains of multimedia despite closing its TV section some years ago.

In the past, Cecilia Bohan, former foreign photo editor and her assistants were left with the arduous task of perusing several rolls of films from the photo feeds to decide on a pick. Even Bohan who was posted to London as director of photography after the takeover of the International Herald Tribune formerly jointly owned with the Washington Post, has moved on to the Arts and Culture Desk.

By exactly 4pm, it was time for the Front Page news meeting of all the most senior editors from the various desks. Just like it was with the news meeting of the Foreign Desk, this writer had the enviable opportunity of also attending the Front Page meeting where Bill Keller, executive editor and Jill Abramson, managing editor took charge.

Ever impressive Chira, a former editorial director of book development since 2002 opened the curtain with her line up spiced with running stories on Libya, the succession crisis in Moscow involving President Dmitry Medvedev and his mentor, Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin, aftermath of the killing of Qaeda Leader, Bin Laden, Obama’s impending speech on the resolution of the crises in the Middle East ahead of the vote for a Palestinian State at the UN in September and the visit of Netanyahu.

Other editors took their turns, reeling out stories ranging from the indictment by the Grand Jury of the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, IMF, Dominique Strauss-Khan to the unfolding story involving former California Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger who had a 14-year- old son outside wedlock from his maid, Mildred Patricia Baena without the knowledge of his wife, Shriver.

Will the travails of Arnold make the front page of The Guardian, ThisDay or any other highbrow newspapers in Nigeria, a country where it is almost a norm for many people in public office to father children outside wedlock? I shrugged. Or will the story of the two cops-Kenneth Moreno, 45 and Franklin Mata, 29 now standing trial for taking sexual advantage of a drunken East Village 27-year- old woman, stranded in a taxi get rave reviews in a country where police violation of citizens rights is commonplace? Many in Nigeria would merely ask what’s new?

At the Front Page news meeting, there was also the story of the bleak future of American graduates who can no longer find jobs and the billions of planets outnumbering stars which negate the 200 billion stars said to be in the Milky Way galaxy, according to measurements and calculations by an international group of astronomers led by Takahiro Sumi of Osaka University in Japan.

A quick look at the line-up of pictures and the meeting soon came to a close. At the two meetings where exchanges were deep, colleagues were delighted to meet their long time West African stringer who had now “crossed to the other side”.

Former West Africa Bureau Chief, Norimitsu Onishi facilitated this visit which will forever remain memorable. Now in Japan covering the Tsunami from his base in Djakarta, Onishi easily passes as one of this writer’s mentors, haven assisted in acquiring my first laptop in 1998 and also brokered editorial consultancy with the UN since 2001.

Sauntering through the hustle and bustle of the ever-busy Manhattan, the business heart of New York City, from the Long Island Train Station, on 34th Street this wet Wednesday, was a hard nut.  But I made it swiftly and was dead set at destination for my 2.45pm appointment.

The imposing 52-storey skyscraper on 41st Street by 8th Avenue on the west side of midtown Manhattan and its alluring ambience, gleans the paper’s eminence as a prime mover. Built in 2007 and housing the headquarters of this high brow American newspaper, The New York Times, is just earshot from the UN headquarters.

Designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop and FXFOWLE Architects, with Gensler providing interior decor, the tower rises 748 feet (228 m) from the street to its roof, with the exterior curtain wall extending 92 feet (28 m) higher to 840 feet (260 m), and a mast rising to 1,046 feet (319 m). As of 2008, the building tied with the Chrysler Building as the third tallest building in New York City and the seventh tallest in the United States.

Greg Winter, one of the editors on the prestigious Foreign Desk was at the security post on the ground floor to usher and show me around the paper’s state-of-the-art newsroom. Though my sojourn with the paper as their stringer dates back to 1992 when I worked with Kenneth Noble, now a professor of Journalism at the University of Southern California, this was my first visit to its headquarters which has witnessed two movements since it was sited at the famous Times Square in 1904.

Mr. Iyare is SA on Media to  Governor Oshiomhole of Edo State.