After
FUNCA Takes
High Road,
Decayed UNCA
of Reuters,
AFP and Now
CBS Talk
Circus
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
February 5 --
The extent of
the corruption
and
complacency of
some of the
large wire
service and
television
journalists
who try to
dominate the
UN press corps
became ever
clearer on
February 5.
After
the Free UN
Coalition for
Access met for
an hour in the
morning with
the top
officials of
the UN
Department of
Public
Information to
demand due
process for
journalists
when the likes
of Voice of
America, Louis
Charbonneau of
Reuters and
Tim Witcher of
AFP file
stealth
complaints,
there was a
lull.
In
the meeting,
the DPI
officials told
FUNCA and
Inner City
Press, didn't
these wires
and UN
Correspondents
Association
"leaders"
pause their anonymous
social media
campaign
against any
journalist
daring to join
FUNCA?
Not really,
was the
answer. But it
is clear: the
UN to the
highest levels
is aware of,
and now
responsible
for, the
sleaze of the
UN's partners
or censorship
alliance in
UNCA.
And at
6 pm on
Tuesday, after
Inner City
Press and then
FUNCA ran an
upbeat account
of slow but
not impossible
reforms of UN
press rules,
the anonymous
UNCA leaders
re-started
their
campaign.
They
began by
saying that
the UN
briefings,
which most of
them don't
bother to
attend but
just try to
use as
parasites to
file "alerts"
like
stenographers,
have been
turned into
"circus."
Actually,
it's
their puppet
"new"
president of
UNCA Pamela
Falk who has
of late been
sadly playing
the clown.
Never before
has anyone
tried to thank
a Secretary
General's
spokesperson
"on behalf of
UNCA" for
showing up and
doing their
job. But Falk
did.
It's
almost cruel,
the way the
controllers of
UNCA are using
Falk.
But it is also
Falk's fault,
to coin a
phrase. She is
a lawyer, and
should have
done some
minimal due
diligence on
UNCA before
she accepted
the invitation
to run
unopposed for
its
presidency. It
is an
organization
increasing
discredited,
which spent
most of 2012
trying
unsuccessfully
to throw the
investigative
Press out of
the UN.
Now
she is charge
with trying to
make it
relevant
again. But
how? In her
first January
24 letter she
stole an issue
from the newer
FUNCA, about
trying to
access Ban
Ki-moon's
briefing to
the GA. But
neither she or
anyone from
UNCA's
Executive
Committee even
TRIED to
access the
meeting. Get a
new issue.
Now, she
is responsible
for the
tearing down
of fliers, for
the anonymous
social media
account, all
of it. As with
the previous
UNCA
president, it
is a sad end
or late
chapter in the
career of a
journalist who
got along and
got along but
is now
exposed. Watch
this site.
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