UN
Blacks
Out UNSC,
Broken Wi-Fi,
No Phones So
UNCA Intern
With P Pass
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, July
24 -- Not only
does the UN
refuse to
answer or now
often even
take
questions: it
is making it
harder for the
press to
cover the
Security
Council and
General
Assembly.
Complaints
have
been mounting
for weeks, of
UN Television
being
unintelligible,
playing
"English Only"
though this is
the UN, even
blacking
out speakers,
from Palestine's
Saeb Erekat
and the UN's
Hilde
Johnson.
Wednesday
after these
complaints,
Inner City
Press on
behalf
of the Free
UN Coalition
for Access
asked Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's
outgoing
Deputy
Spokesman
Eduardo Del
Buey what
FUNCA has
raised
for day to the
UN, video
here from
Minute 11:35.
The
UN wireless
Internet in
front of the
Security
Council often
does not work.
Inner City
Press including
this in a
story (on
Burundi) on
July 22,
and FUNCA has
been following
up ever since.
Journalists
cannot
hear what
happens in
open meeting
while also
waiting to ask
questions.
That seems to
some to be the
goal. While
the Security
Council
stakeout
before and
during the
relocation had
a media work
table in front
of it, now by
decision of
the Department
of Public
Information it
does not.
Ironically
DPI's
new UNTV
contractor
TeamPeople
does have a
table, and
even
plugs in to
their
electrical
outlet in such
a way that
reporters
cannot go to
the other end
of the
stakeout to
speak to
diplomats. The
lack of a
table was
justified on
aesthetic
grounds,
misplaced; but
these do not
seem to apply
to DPI's own
contractors.
After
FUNCA
advocated on
these issues
and turned in
a petition
with
signatures
from resident
correspondents
on several
continents, DPI's
response was
to threaten to
suspend or
withdraw
Inner City
Press'
accreditation,
for hanging
a sign of
the Free
UN Coalition
for Access
on the
door of its
shared office,
photo here.
This
comes as Inner
City Press and
FUNCA have
shown that the
United Nations
Correspondents
Association's
first vice
president Lou
Charbonneau
immediately
leaked to DPI
an internal
UNCA anti
Press
document.
Click here for
story, here
for document.
Neither the UN
nor its UNCA
have taken any
action on
this.
Meanwhile
DPI
allows its
partner UNCA,
increasingly
the UN
Censorship
Alliance,
to have two
signs, a
big meeting
room, a locked
pantry for its
wine
glasses and
its own
office. But
there's more
-- DPI has
also given
UNCA intern(s)
"P" (Press)
entry passes,
and allowed
them
into the UN
briefing room
and stakeout.
DPI
tells even
diplomats, at
least those
from some
countries,
they can't
come into the
briefing room.
But a
non-journalist
intern of UNCA
(the
UN Censorship
Alliance) is
allowed in,
repeatedly.
Why? See
e.g., video
here, at
Minute 0:44.
But
there's more!
DPI promised
correspondents
that they
would be UN
telephones, to
for example
call people in
the UN
Missions in
the
Congo, Sudan,
Somalia and
Haiti, in the
so-called
focus booths.
Then
FUNCA was told
this is not
possible, the
focus booth
are being
given
to
journalists.
Well,
the focus
booth closest
to Inner City
Press' (and
FUNCA's)
shared
office has had
the UNCA
intern in it.
Long time
journalists
weren't allowed
to use this
space, had
their passes
changed due to
lack of a
space.
But the non
journalist, introduced
to Deputy
Secretary
General Jan
Eliasson
by UNCA's 2013
president
Pamela Falk of
CBS as "one of
our interns,"
was working in
there with a
"P" Press
pass.
That's why
there's no
phone service
to the UN
Peacekeeping
missions?
Watch this
site.
, 
