UN
Censorship
Alliance in
Disarray as
CBS' Falk
Deletes
Tweets,
Dujarric
Blocks Access
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
March 1 – The
UN has seen
some loud if
not
illuminating
debates in its
day, for
example Nikita
Khrushchev
banging his
shoe on the
Security
Council table.
During the
Russia -
Georgia
conflict,
Russian
Ambassador
Vitaly Churkin
memorably
asked if US
Ambassador
Zalmay
Khalilzad had
lost his
earpiece.
But
the United
Nations' media
apparatus, the
UN's
Censorship
Alliance,
can't seem to
handle any on
the record
debate. One
week ago,
current
UNCA president
Pamela Falk
screamed at
Inner City
Press, “you
call
yourself a
journalist?”
Inner
City Press had
already said,
also loudly,
“you are on
the record,”
and Falk had
replied, “He's
going to write
about this.” Audio
here.
But
when Inner
City Press did
write about
it, the
response was
from the
boss of UN
Media
Accreditation
Stephane
Dujarric,
criticizing
Inner
City Press for
the article, falsely
claiming that
the session in
which UNCA's
Falk screamed
had been off
the record.
Inner
City Press
immediately
replied and
asked for an
explanation of
Dujarric's
formal letter
of complaint
-- but in the
48 hours
since,
Dujarric has
not provided
any
explanation
much less
retraction of
the
letter, now
exposed as
false.
Thirty
six hours into
his radio
silence, Inner
City Press published
a media
critique
mentioning and
linking to a
few of the
tweets of
UNCA's
Pamela Falk,
who promoted
both the UNCA
executive
committee and
herself, as a
hashtag and
pictured at a
CBS Up To The
Minute desk.
Inner
City Press
noted that the
tweets
re-heated
three day old
news and
tweeted it as
Western
countries'
missions to
the UN, and
erred in
placing the
Iran nuclear
talks in Rome
instead of
Almaty.
What
was Falk's
response?
To take down
each and every
tweet that
Inner
City Press linked
to, as if
they had never
been on the
Internet. Is
that a best
practice for a
president of
the United
Nations
Correspondents
Association,
who demands of
others, “You
call
yourself a
journalist?”
While CBS did
censor its
subsidiary
CNET from
reporting, is
the absolute
disappearing
of already
reported
content
consistent
with CBS's
(devolving)
rules?
One can't
directly and
diplomatically
ask since
Falk, a
lawyer, darkly
and on the
record told
Inner City
Press that
even writing
to media
companies
"might be a
crime." Audio
here.
What
did the UN's
Dujarric do in
the midst of
this, rather
than
responding
in any way to
Inner City
Press' request
for an
explanation of
his
false letter
which sought
to Ban the Free UN Coalition for Access
from pressing
forward with
detailed
reforms to the
UN's media
rules?
Dujarric,
a
high but not
the highest
official in
the UN
Department of
PUBLIC
Information
moved to block
Inner City
Press from
viewing his
Twitter
account, on
which for
example he congratulates
and jokes with
a
correspondent,
Margaret
Besheer,
whose media
the Voice
of America on
June 20, 2012
asked Dujarric
to review
the
accreditation
of Inner
City Press.
Might
this
tweet too,
like Falk's,
now simply
disappear?
There
are at least
two ironies in
all this. UNCA
“leaders,”
ever since
Inner City
Press
co-founded the
Free UN
Coalition for
Access, have
set
up at least
four anonymous
twitter
accounts
to mock those
joining
FUNCA and to tell
countries'
missions to
the UN
that Inner
City
Press,
renamed, is trying to
collect money
not to
investigate
that.
On that dirty
trick,
Dujarric wrote
no letter of
complaint.
In
fact, before
blocking Inner
City Press
from viewing
his tweets,
Dujarric
tweeted at
Inner City
Press in
defense of the
UN Security
Council,
or France, it
wasn't clear.
That's fine -
but when Inner
City Press
begin a
similar
critique, the
UN's “public”
information
official's
response is to
block access.
A
UN “public”
information
official who
selectively
blocks some
but
not all UN
correspondents
from his
twitter
account, while
refusing to
explain a
formal letter
shown to be
false? This is
accountability?
Watch
this site.
, 
