While most of the TV news universe is focused on our nation’s capital this week for Friday’s inauguration, there’s another newsworthy event taking place across the pond right now: The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The Annual Meeting 2017 was officially opened today at the WEF Congress Center by President Xi Jinping of China, and other speakers include Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry, as well as UK Prime Minister Theresa May, Italy’s Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg.
Business news networks have dispatched talent to the Swiss Alps this week to cover the festivities. CNBC and Bloomberg kick off their live coverage of the event today, while CNN got the ball rolling yesterday.
CNN’s Richard Quest is anchoring Quest Means Business from Davos all week. Becky Anderson, Fareed Zakaria and John Defterios are also on the grounds for CNN, as is a team from CNNMoney who will be giving analysis of the panels, speeches and breaking news across the network’s digital platforms.
Quest commented on the Chinese leader’s opening remarks, saying that he quoted “Dickens, Chinese proverbs and paraphrasing Gettysburg address. A speech that’s a tour de force #Davos.”
It’s surreal. A Chinese president giving a speech one might have expected from a US president. #Davos
— Richard Quest (@richardquest) January 17, 2017
On Thursday, Zakaria will be interviewing King Abdullah of Jordan on stage, while Defterios will host a panel on The Global Energy Outlook, with ministers from Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Nigeria alongside the CEOs of Eni and ENGIE.
CNBC’s Squawk Box is on the ground in Davos once again with anchors Joe Kernen, Becky Quick and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, AT&T Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson, Salesforce.com Chairman & CEO Marc Benioff, and actor Matt Damon will appear on the program this week.
Sara Eisen and Wilfred Frost are anchoring Worldwide Exchange, and Eisen will broadcast her program Squawk on the Street from Davos.
Ready for action #WEF2017 #davos2017 @CNBCWEX @saraeisen pic.twitter.com/ovzSGKOmtO
— Wilfred Frost (@WilfredFrost) January 17, 2017
JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon, Goldman Sachs Chairman & CEO Lloyd Blankfein, Morgan Stanley Chairman & CEO James Gorman, Bridgewater Associates Founder, President & CIO Ray Dalio, and Dell Technologies Chairman & CEO Michael Dell will appear on various CNBC daytime programs in Davos this week.
Bloomberg TV will have a presence at WEF as well. Tom Keene and Francine Lacqua are hosting Bloomberg Surveillance from Davos today through Friday. Correspondent Erik Schatzker and John Micklethwait, Editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News, will also be on the ground and will be conducting TV interviews throughout the week.
Only in #Davos. Tom’s regal bow. @bsurveillance@rwehrspannpic.twitter.com/yMmDTveLag
— Francine Lacqua (@flacqua) January 17, 2017
Univision news anchor and Fusion special correspondent Enrique Acevedo is hosting a panel discussion at Davos called Disrupting the Status Quo of Gender Roles that will be featured across Univision and Fusion platforms.
The discussion will include Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF); Isabel Saint Malo, Vice President of Panama; Cynthia Castro, Vice-President of Reinventing Business for All (RBA) in Costa Rica; Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, documentary filmmaker; and Robert E. Moritz, Global Chairman of PricewaterhouseCoopers International.
Meanwhile Fusion senior editor Felix Salmon, who is also in Davos, writes about the relevance of the summit in his piece: ‘Why so few world leaders showed up at the most elite conference of them all.’