FIDE's Journalist Commission 2017

The next group to look at in Spectating the 88th FIDE Congress is the Commission of Chess Journalists, last seen in FIDE's Journalist Commission 2016 (December 2016). For 2017, we first turn to the general report for the 88th FIDE Congress in Antalya, Turkey (fide.com; October 2017). The journalists received three mentions.

Day 1: The 88th FIDE Congress started today at the Avantgarde Hotel in Antalya, Turkey. The Congress is organized by the Turkish Chess Federation and attended by the FIDE Executive & Presidential Board, the FIDE Commissions, the FIDE Delegates and the National Chess Federations. On the first day there were meetings of the Central Board of Commissions, the Marketing Committee, the Technical Commission (TEC), [...] and the Commission of Chess Journalists (CCJ).

Also in the report for the first day:-

The Commission of Chess Journalists reviewed the Media Regulations which should be forwarded to the Executive Board for the final approval. The Commission also reported on the progress on issuing the FIDE Journalist accreditations and the plans for the 2018 SportAccord Convention.

The third mention was as a caption for a photo of the meeting, but the photo was missing due to some glitch. I found it here:-

www.fide.com/images/stories/NEWS_2017/FIDE_News/88th_Congress/CCJ.JPG

The agenda for the meeting (Annex_34; all annexes can be located via the 'Spectating' post) was:-

- Media regulations
- Accreditation of journalists
- SportAccord Convention 2018
- Journalists awards
- Proposal from Intonation Ltd / City Legal Translations
- Other matters

Only the 'Intonation' item is not mentioned in the minutes of the meeting (Annex_76), which start...

Commission of Chess Journalists (CCJ) meeting, Goynuk, Antalya, Turkey, 8 October 2017 [...] Chairman: G. Makropoulos (GRE), Secretary: A. Karlovich (UKR), Present: [11 names representing nine federations]

...and end...

Media regulations recommended for the approval of the Executive Board.

The 'Media regulations' were an 11 page attachment to the 13 pages of the minutes. Unfortunately, they are not well structured and are difficult to summarize. They start with a jumble of headings and definitions:-

Media Press Center: A Media Center (Press Office) should be set-up to handle the media matters for the chess event. Its proper work requires technical and personnel conditions. • Technical conditions: Facilities: The press area must [...]

Also covered are the 'Official website' (specified elsewhere: hostcity20xx.fide.com), 'Photography and Television', 'FIDE’s official Youtube channel' (fidechannel - YouTube), 'FIDE Press Officer', 'Interviews' (details for different events), 'Special regulations for FIDE events' (ditto), and 'FIDE Chess Journalists'. The 'Special regulations' start,

World Chess Championship Matches: The players are obliged to attend the "Media Day" (estimated 120 minutes) and are expected to co-operate reasonably with the media.

and contain a long extract, '4.7 Media facilities', from FIDE's Handbook :: Regulations for the Chess Olympiad. The section on 'FIDE Chess Journalists' is mainly a list of how many hotel nights organizers are required to give to 'accredited FIDE journalists during FIDE events', for example, 'FIDE Grand Prix - 9 nights'. One more point from the 2017 minutes worth mentioning is:-

A. Karlovich informed the meeting about the next SportAccord Convention due for April 2018. There is a proposal that Commission Secretary should travel to this world's biggest sports meeting to establish connections with major journalist organizations and exchange the experience with other sports associations.

This promises to be another step forward for chess journalists. The commission has come a long way since I first reported on it in FIDE Journalists' Commission (December 2013; 'A suivre...').