Pointing
to Egypt, CPJ
Goes Soft on
UK and
Reuters,
Spying
Ignored, New
Needed, FUNCA
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
August 19 --
The UK's
nine hour
detention of
journalist
Glenn
Greenwald's
partner David
Miranda
gave rise to
outrage
worldwide on Monday, even
in the UN
Security
Council
(as Inner City
Press covered
here.)
But
for the old-school
Committee to
Protect
Journalists,
the focus was
too much. By
Monday
evening, CPJ's
Joel Simon opined
on Twitter,
"Not
to minimize
gravity of
#Miranda
detention but
journalists
being
rounded up in
#Egypt."
Well,
yes. But
beyond the
trend, far
from unknown
to Inner City
Press, to
reflexively
seek a worse
problem
elsewhere,
this resonated
with CPJ's
unwillingness
even in the
face of documentary
evidence
to deploy its
journalist-defense
rhetoric on
the UN, the UK
and as
connects the
two
or three,
Reuters.
Inner
City Press
showed CPJ
that Reuters
UN bureau
chief Louis
Charbonneau
had tried
to get
it thrown
out of the UN
(FOIA documents
here
and here)
-- and CPJ
replied that
it
had more
pressing work
in Mexico.
Then
CPJ
big wigs
including Rob
Mahoney openly
cavorted, in a
session
sponsored
by UNCA
which
has become the
UN Censorship
Alliance,
with
Charbonneau,
criticizing
every place
but where they
were: the UN.
(It's
like
Human Rights
Watch, for
example on the
DRC -- they so
want easy
access to the
UN and the
cache that
supposedly
brings that
they go soft
on the UN
itself.
CPJ
has been shown
that the UN
has no content
neutral
accreditation
rules, but
while the NYCLU
spoke out,
CPJ did not.
Surely North
Korea
called.)
Now
Inner City
Press
has shown
with
documents
that Reuters
bureau chief
Charbonneau
gave internal
UNCA
anti-Press
documents to
the UN's chief
accreditation
official, three minutes
after
promising not
to. Story
here, audio here,
document
here. But
will CPJ, or
at least old
school
Joel Simon,
just keep
"partnering"?
CPJ, we're
sure, does
good work. But
it has its
blind spots,
like anything;
it is not
sufficient.
CPJ
is an old
school
organization.
Which is fine.
But new
energy, and
new
formations,
are needed.
The Free
UN Coalition
for Access
and
affiliates
will not turn
back. And we
can ask about
and work on
Egypt
and the UN's
Censorship
Alliance with
Reuters all at
the same time.
Watch this
site.