Inner City Press -- Investigative Reporting From the United Nations to Wall Street to the Inner City

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, February 12 -- Why would the UN refuse to make public quotes Secretary General Ban Ki-moon gave on the record to 15 largely Gulf and Western correspondents, even the next day?

  Inner City Press put this question to UN Spokesperson Martin Nesirky on February 12 and was told to "get over it." Then the president of the United Nations Correspondents Association Pamela Falk of CBS openly thanked Nesirky for all his insights. Video here and embedded below.

  But the question remains, even as to what Nesirky said were Ban's partially off the record remarks to the UNCA fifteen: does he, or Ban, only trust these largely Gulf and Western correspondents? Why couldn't the UN circulate the comments, marking them off the record, to other resident correspondents?

    Since this has yet to be explained, as the Free UN Coalition for Access has requested, Inner City Press asked a sample question: did the issue of Department of Political Affairs chief Jeffrey Feltman "getting" Ban Ki-moon to send Robert Serry to Ukraine, as referenced by US official Toria Nuland in her leaked call, come up?

  Nesirky said, No.  So now we know that none of the 15 correspondents given the Ban on and off the record quotes on February 11 even asked this key question. As some have said since this exchange, is it any surprise?

  Nesirky said, you can see the coverage of Ban's lunch comments. Well, not much.

Let's review: Ban lunched with what's become the UN's Censorship Alliance, despite its leadership openly violating the group's own constitution, which they just put back online, by not having the required financial meeting in the first half of January, as promised in an email disclosing a donated Samsung television subsequently denied by UNCA 2013-14 president Pam Falk of CBS.

   Once another of the UNCA board members tweeted a photograph of Ban, his deputy Jan Eliasson and spokesperson Martin Nesirky, Inner City Press formally asked Nesirky and his deputy for

  What Nesirky's office did after that was to email out Ban's prepared remarks, with no question and answer, much less what is understood as his comments on crimes against humanity. (Since Ban was silent at the time on those in Sri Lanka, some ask, is it any wonder? Click here for UNCA's "leadership" on Sri Lanka.)

  What came of his spoon-fed briefing? UNCA insiders from Reuters and Xinhua (bragging about the "small group of UN-based correspondents" it was with) wrote stories about the Central African Republic and France, neither one mentioning that even the UN's Navi Pillay on January 20 said France put Muslim communities at risk of attack by first disarming the ex Seleka rebels.

  Agence France-Presse, which is now not technically on the UNCA board (after using its position there to try to defend Herve Ladsous, the fourth Frenchman in a row atop UN Peacekeeping), wrote the same story, here, adding a quote from French defense minister Jean-Yves Le Drian.

   But how can the UN cite rules against one group, the union, while ignoring them on another? The answer is that the union fights or pushes to hold Ban accountable, while the UNCA leadership does not. So one is broken, the other lunched with.

  Most telling are direct censorship efforts by the UN bureau chief of Reuters, with its Permanent seat on UNCA's board. He got Google to ban from its Search a complaint he filed with the UN trying to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN, (mis) using the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act as diagnosed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. That's straight up censorship, and it's enough, well, to lose your lunch. But not today, apparently.

  More contrast: in the UN Staff Union election, in which an incumbent sought to stay on despite term limits, there were charges of illegal polling, and an attempt to stop paying the Elections Services Company.

   Now, the ticket that came out on top in the election has written to UN Department of Management chief Yukio Takasu for a statement if he and the UN recognize this union leadership.

   Takasu last week presided over a Department of Management town hall meeting at which impacts on staff members were discussed -- but without a recognized union?

   Inner City Press is informed that in the UN facility in Valencia, for example, contract workers will re obtained through the UN Office for Project Services. Union-busting and outsourcing, at the UN.

  On December 17 Inner City Press published the results, putting the document online here:

Winner with 430 votes: Ticket 1 [They have thanked voters]

President Stephen Kisambira (DESA/PD)

First Vice-President Emad Hassanin (DGACM/MPD/PS)

Second Vice-President Leonid Dolgopolov (DSS/DSSS/SSS)

2d place with 231 votes: Ticket 2

President Nadir A. Dirar Bashir (DGACM/MPD/PS/DTPU)...

  We will continue to cover that showdown, which is at least competitive. Even more decayed is the United Nations Correspondents Association or UN's Censorship Alliance.

  To compare: while the UN uses a dispute about the legality of the December election to refuse to recognize those who came out on top in the union election, the fact the UNCA has again violated its own Constitution, only today put back online, by not holding a meeting about its finance in the first half of January is ignored by the UN. Because UNCA serves this UN.

   It's simple: the UNCA Constitution Article 7, 1, states "The Association shall convene an annual Membership Meeting during the first half of the month of January."

  This didn't happen; instead, 2013-14 president Pamela Falk of CBS distributed November 25 minutes, which also directly referred to a donated Samsung television which UNCA later denied, stating as to the Constitution that

   Despite this acknowledgment of the requirements of the UNCA Constitution, the meeting was not held in the first half of January, or even in January at all.

  A Constitutionally-invalid meeting has been scheduled for February 13 -- at the same time as a Security Council meeting on the humanitarian situation in Syria. Reporting on the Security Council is undermine by UNCA's laxity: there are fewer and fewer UNTV stakeouts, as potential speakers are diverted to private chats in the so-called Turkish Lounge. This happened on February 10, while the "new" UNCA fed quotes from French president Hollande's state dinner in Washington.

    Ban's UN hands the first question and more to UNCA, which does not challenge Ban. In 2012 its leaders tried to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN, pointing at a factual article Inner City Press published about Sri Lanka, the UN and conflicts of interest.

  Ban's Secretariat now admits on Sri Lanka a "systemic failure" - his Deputy Jan Eliasson repeatedly says that -- but UNCA, which still has no rules against trying to throw journalists out of the UN, nor apparently any conflict of interest rules, makes no admission, no reforms.

  It demands the first question at press conferences even if it has nothing to ask, or the answers will never be published.

  Not surprisingly it is in decay. ng a 2009 trip to Sri Lanka with Ban Ki-moon and UK humanitarian chief Sir John Holmes not only didn't report Holmes on the record comment that he deleted all complaining emails from Tamils -- she said the Press reporting this "ruined" relations with Holmes for her and, for example, Reuters. Though over 2000 journalists are accredited at the UN, in December 2013 only 111 even tried to vote in the three days of polling -- and door to door demands to vote for -- the United Nations Correspondents Association. Seven of these ballots failed. The incumbent Pamela Falk of CBS, running unopposed, still managed to not get 26 of the 104 votes cast.

  But as a result of UNCA's "Ball" with Ban, she got her fashion photo in the NYT Styles section and made sure to hype it up, online and in the briefing room before being handed, only to waste, the first of four questions on the South Sudan crisis on December 23.

  Falk's vote total of 78 was lower than the 85 obtained in December 2011 by her predecessor, who was the one who first demanded that Inner City Press remove an article about Sri Lanka from the Internet, click here for that.

 The article UNCA "leaders" tries to censor reported on the previous financial relationship of Sri Lanka's Permanent Representative with UNCA's then president, in the context of this president screening in the UN the Sri Lankan government's war crimes denial film, without asking or the consent of Inner City Press then on the Executive Committee of UNCA.

  No reforms in UNCA were ever instituted after this.

 Inner City Press after withstanding a kangaroo court UNCA proceeding quit the organization and co-founded the new Free UN Coalition for Access, @FUNCA_info, to actually defend the right of free press and free inquiry in and about the UN system.

    In 2012 UNCA "leaders" tried to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN, as documented by documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. Voice of America asked the UN to "review" Inner City Press' accreditation; VOA said it had the support of Agence France Presse and Reuters, click here for that.

The Reuters first vice president of UNCA spied for the UN, giving them an internal anti Press UNCA document three minutes after promising not to (story here, document here, audio here).

 While he has stepped off, the Reuters reporter he supervised (and who also tried to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN) campaigned to get on UNCA's board, demanded on camera in a UN noon briefing to all present, "Have you voted?" It's as if Reuters has a Permanent seat on UNCA's 15-member Executive Committee, like the P5 in the Security Council.

  Some of the elected are new and their positions on UNCA Executive Committee members trying to get other (investigative) media thrown out of the UN, and the need to preclude this and UNCA leaders' anonymous social media trolling, are not yet known. (Some not elected were among the better / more diverse candidates.)

When the UN Correspondents Association leaders tried stealthy to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN, and have failed to institute any reform since, it became the UN's Censorship Alliance. Party on. Watch this site.