The InterDependent

At 4:30 a.m., when many New Yorkers might still be sound asleep, Martin Nesirky is starting his day. His early wake-up call is related to the time that his boss, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, gets up.

"I need to be up around that time to inform him what’s happening in the world," said Nesirky, Ban’s spokesman for the last year and a half. He monitors news online and on TV and sends the highlights to the secretary-general. Some of his news sources are the BBC, wire services, France 24, CNN, Al Jazeera, Radio France Internationale, The New York Times and The Washington Post.

"The key is not to bombard him but to make sure that he can digest what you are sending," Nesirky said of Ban.

Nesirky, a 51-year-old Briton, works from home for a couple of hours before he walks to UN headquarters near the East River from the East Midtown apartment he shares with his wife, who is Korean, and their baby daughter. Nesirky speaks some Korean, a little French and understands Dutch; he studied German and Russian at Bath University in England.

Once he’s at work at 7:30 a.m., Nesirky looks at the news digests that were sent overnight by UN employees around the world, from Bangkok to Bahrain. Nesirky and his team compile the digests and select news from various sources into a document titled "The Spokesperson’s Morning Headlines." In recent months, of course, events in the Middle East have dominated the content.

The first digest is sent to the secretary-general at 8 a.m., and the second one at about 5 p.m. In between, Nesirky sends Ban full articles on pressing topics as well as briefings. The ending time of his day varies.

"An early start does not translate into an early end," said Nesirky, who monitors news at home late into the evening and on weekends. When he isn’t scanning international news or attending meetings, Nesirky works as a link connecting various media representatives with the UN. Every day at noon, he holds a briefing, giving journalists the UN’s response to breaking news.

He prepares for the briefing with the secretary-general, gathering answers to the questions most likely to come up. He may contact the day’s most relevant UN missions to get the latest information from them. In the last two months, with so many revolts and uprisings happening, Nesirky said his work has become "more intense," with additional travel, telephone calls to Ban and many interviews.

As a former Reuters editor and foreign correspondent in Moscow, The Hague, Berlin, Seoul and London, Nesirky has plenty of experience asking tough questions. Yet the UN journalists often catch him off guard.

Mirva Lempiainen

Martin Nesirky, 51, is the spokesman for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Nesirky's day begins at 4:30 a.m.

"In the briefing I’m constantly surprised by the kinds of questions I get," he said, noting that they can be about anything from peacekeeping to climate change, from women’s rights to UN reform.

Indeed, the job of spokesman for the secretary-general is often viewed globally as being a spokesman for the entire United Nations system, yet most of the other UN offices and missions around the world have their own spokespeople. When an issue rises to the uppermost levels at UN headquarters, however, it is usually the secretary-general's spokesman who must collate and disseminate the information. That makes the job far more complex than that of a government or ministry spokesperson, who has only one script to follow and an audience of journalists largely dedicated to that place.

In decades past, UN spokespeople often had difficulty having getting full entrée to the boss as well. But under Kofi Annan, things turned around and he gave his spokesman, Fred Eckhard, "maximum access," he said. Eckhard, who was Annan’s spokesman from 1997 to 2005 and now runs a nonprofit group, also said in an e-mail interview that he heard that Ban was worked closely with his spokesman, too. "That only makes sense if you want good press relations."

Besides the challenge of staying on top of the secretary-general's comings and goings and thoughts, the journalists at the UN, many of whom have been on the job for years, can be a very demanding lot. "I think at my first briefing, one of the more robust correspondents criticized me for being late," Nesirky said. The next day he arrived to work on time, only to find an empty press room.

Though Nesirky tries to keep abreast of all the UN programs and world news, he admits he doesn’t always have the answers. "I didn’t come to the job thinking I could be an expert of everything." When he can’t provide an answer on the spot, his colleagues step in to provide more details – that is, if the spokesman’s office has access to them.

"Within our team we have people specializing in different bits of the UN," Nesirky said, adding that other times the journalists may need to wait to get the answer they need. "I try to have a robust response to questions based on incomplete assumptions or premises. I also try to use a little humor to defuse things, but that doesn’t always work."

Occasionally, he must remain silent on certain issues.

"Of course, there are times when I’m privy to information that cannot immediately be told to journalists or shared with the general public," he said. "But it’s important to understand that those occasions are quite limited."

Nesirky said that withholding information is generally about safety concerns, which was the case with the UN’s decision not to divulge details of a kidnapping in Sudan, for example, last winter.

Although being a spokesman differs greatly from being a journalist, Nesirky said he didn’t see a big disconnect between his current job and his former one as a reporter.

"In the heart of it is information, seeking or providing," he said. In his current post, he said he did a bit of both. "In many ways we’re seeking information as well, so it’s not so different in that respect."

Nesirky said that his 20 years in journalism have helped him tremendously in his work at the UN, since he knows what reporters are looking for in a story. The busy pace is also similar to that of Reuters. He first left journalism in 2006 to work at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe for three years before joining the UN.

"I enjoyed what I was doing," he said, "and I enjoy what I’m doing now."

His favorite thing about his job is, in fact, working with reporters. "If I can help journalists to write accurately and in an informed way about the United Nations and the secretary-general, then I'm happy."

Though his job can be grueling, Nesirky thinks it’s also exciting. "It is a privilege to be close to the heart of activities that have a direct bearing on the lives of so many."

The flip side to being in the center of international diplomacy is that Nesirky is hardly ever fully off-duty, even on weekends. Whether he is strolling along the East River with his wife and daughter or shopping at the Union Square greenmarket, he needs to scan world events. "Mobile technology means I don't have to stay at home."

When he does grab some downtime, he reads books and goes to the gym. Whereas he used to work out every day, his schedule now allows him to do so on weekends only. "Clearly the hours are rather punishing, but this is nothing compared with the difficulties people face in many places around the world every day," he said.