Press
Excluded from
Ban Speech,
UNCA Invisible
But For Fake
Fliers,
Bankrupt
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
January 22 --
On a day when
the media was
excluded
from UN
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's
speech to
the General
Assembly,
there
was no protest
at all from
the decaying
UN
Correspondents
Association.
Instead,
while
the
Ambassadors of
the US,
China and
South Korea
were taking
Press
questions at
the Security
Council
stakeout,
UNCA's
"leaders"
were up in
their offices,
drafting then
posting
counterfeit
fliers
purporting to
be from the Free UN Coalition for Access, FUNCA.
Click here
to
view one,
photo credit
to FUNCA
member Luiz
Rampelloto.
Rather
than defend
the rights of
journalists,
in 2012 UNCA's
First Vice
President Louis
Charbonneau
filed a secret
complaint with
UN Media
Accreditation,
then expressed
support
for Voice
of America to
stealthly
request the
"review"
of the
accreditation
of Inner City
Press.
Now
UNCA is in no
position to
say anything
about the due
process rights
of
journalists.
At
the North
Korea
stakeouts,
there was
little to no
presence from
the
UNCA Executive
Committee --
one of whom, Tim
Witcher of
Agence
France-Presse,
nonetheless wrote
breathlessly
of "new
sanctions,"
which not
only China but
also South
Korea disagree
with as a
description of
the resolution.
Charbonneau,
absent from
the stakeout
and from Ban's
press
conference,
sat somewhere
reading or
merely being a
pass through
about KCNA's
reports.
The new
president,
Pamela Falk of
CBS, so intent
on being
announced as
such at
Monday's
evenings
Pakistan
peacekeeping
reception, did
not come on
North Korea
nor to the
Pakistani
Permanent
Representative's
midday
stakeout.
President for
what?
Apparently
UNCA's
new idea of
advocacy
extends only
this far: to
ensure they
can
walk up the
stairs with
Ambassadors.
And, it seems,
the right to
file
stealth
complaints,
and to post
counterfeit
fliers.
This
can and will
be seen and
studied as
bankruptcy.
Watch this
site.
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