UN
General Assembly Week Stops Press on
Last Day, "Where
are You Going,"
Asks
DPI of Smale
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Video
UNITED NATIONS,
September 16 –
The UN was both unprepared and
unfair during the 72nd General
Assembly high level week, from
beginning to end. On the last
day, September 25, as Inner
City Press came in through the
metal detectors to cover a
listed UN Security Council
meeting UN Security demanded,
"Where are you going?" No such
question is asked of Egyptian
state media Akhbar al Yom,
which only came in to function
as cover up "pool" for the
Guterres - Sisi meeting, or of
Pakistan's Daily Dawn, which
did not even show up to defend
its country's misuse of a
photo of Gaza supposedly
representing Kashmir. Those
are both "resident
correspondents," according to
the DPI of Alison Smale, to
whom the question has been
directly put, along with the
injustice of Inner City Press
being banned from talking to
diplomats about Yemen, when
other media could, outside the
September 22 meeting about the
crisis. We'll have more on
this. On September 16 with the
UN Media Alert listing a 4:30
pm event about refugees,
ostensibly Secretary General Antonio
Guterres' signature
issue, Inner City Press was
stopped from entering the UN,
even through the Visitor's
Entrance, to cover the event.
Two UN Security officers were
unaware of the Media Alert or
what it was. As the time
passed 4:30 pm, their
supervisor returned to say
that his "boss, Millie
McCormack," said the Press
could not come in. Video here.
No one present from, nor any
preparation by, the UN
Department of Public
Information, now run by Alison
Smale who has not responded to
numerous petitions to her
since September 1, even while
attended fashion
shows. The UN is both
UNprepared and UNfair -
including on such issues as Myanmar,
Yemen,
Burundi
and Cameroon.
Next up,on September 18,
US President Trump, Ambassador
Nikki Haley and UN Secretary
General Antonio Guterres in
the UN's ECOSOC Chamber.
September. Guterres' spokesman
Stephane Dujarric has
repeatedly said he will
distribute a list of meetings
and bilaterals of his boss,
his third Secretary General in
a row, Antonio Guterres. As of
the evening of Friday,
September 15 it has not
happened. Dujarric tried to limit
his "background" briefing at
10 am on September 15 only to
his friends in the UN
Correspondents Association, a
group which accepted
advertising funds from
Macau-based businessman Ng Lap
Seng's South South News then
provided the venue for Ng's
photos with Dujarric's
previous boss Ban Ki-moon. Now
several disgusted UNCA members
have forwarded Inner City
Press this UNCA bragging, how
UNCA has negotiated to exclude
the vast majority of
journalists covering UNGA from
access to the Conference
Building: the UNCA members
"have access to B1 area with
secondary passes AND without
cameras...The UNCA chair in
the Press Briefing Room now
has a plaque alerting visiting
media that the seat is
reserved." Way to try to let
the "visiting media" and the
UN-based media which covers
corruption know who you think
is boss. The bragging
concludes, "As in previous
years an email was sent to Lt.
Eugene Whyte with the NYPD
containing the list of the
broadcasters who have paid for
a spot / fiber connection on
Press Island so that media
outlets without NYPD passes
have access. They are:
TIMA // EUROVISION // CBS //
SPHYNX // CCTV // AL JAZEERA
// CBC // CNN // BBC //AL
ARABIYA // AP // XINHUA // NHK
// VOA. Thank you for your
attention, UNCA Access, Space
and Security Committee"
including Sherwin Bryce-Pease,
Meilssa Kent, Nabil
Abi Saab, Giampaolo
Pioli." This information
is sent only to people who pay
money. At a background
briefing on September 8, a UN
Department of Public
Information official told
Inner City Press that the
current nearly-useless wifi
Internet “should” be fixed in
time, and that “there will be
a secondary pass for RC to go
to basement area, 1B, limited
to resident correspondents” -
a group of less than 200 of
the several thousand
journalist the UN says are
coming.
Inner City Press
asked, Why are these passes
limited in that way? The UN
official said, “That's the
arrangement with Security and
with the UNCA [UN
Correspondents Association]
because we have to find some
distinction.”
So the UN let a
group of at most 200 insiders
limit the access of thousands
of other journalists, with no
transparency. This Department
of Public Information has been
headless since April 1; New
York Times journalist Alison
Smale was named by Secretary
General Antonio Guterres as
replacement but has apparently
not arrived: she has not
answered e-mailed questions
about these elitist
“distinctions.” Actually, the
200 UNCA insiders include
numerous rarely seen state
media, for example Akhbar al
Yom from Sisi's Egypt, making
the “distinction” all the more
telling.
Similarly, when
Inner City Press was for
assurance that at least the UN
Press Briefing Room would be
open to all journalists, the
UN official said while
missions are told that, there
is no guarantee, the Media
Accreditation office does not
make the bookings. Those are
done by the UN Spokesman,
Stephane Dujarric, who has a
history as noted by the Free
UN Coalition for Access
of "lending" the UN Press
Briefing Room to the president
of his native France, and to
UNCA, evicting
the Press which tried to cover
the event with Periscope.
The UN is closing
in on itself, while bragging
about all the important people
coming to see it. The reformed
needed at the UN go well
beyond those alluded to in the
pre-signed outcome document of
the September 18 event. That
reform event, tellingly, is
not even mentioned on the UN's
list so far of UNGA72 events:
12 September:
Opening of the 72nd Session of
the General Assembly
(Preliminary list of items in
the provisional agenda);
FUNCA: US event
on UN Reform, 9:30 am, ECOSOC
(Trump, Haley, Guterres);
18 September:
High-Level Meeting on the
Prevention of Sexual
Exploitation and Abuse;
19-25 September:
General Debate of the General
Assembly 72nd Session;
FUNCA: September
19, Heads of State luncheon
(Inner City Press will cover);
September 19:
Central African Republic
meeting, CR 3, 4:15-6:15,
stakeout after;
20 September:
Signing Ceremony of the Treaty
for the Prohibition of Nuclear
Weapons;
20 September:
Security Council High Level
Meeting: Reform of UN
peacekeeping, implementation
and follow-up;
FUNCA: September
20: on Mali, CR 4, open 3:30
to 4;
September 21,
South South 4-6 pm, CR 8 - no
press (!)
September 22 8 am
CR 5, Yemen;
Septmeber 22,
3-5, ECOSOC, Sierra Leone and
Costa Rica (ask them);
26 September:
High-level plenary meeting to
promote and commemorate the
International Day for the
Total Elimination of Nuclear
Weapons;
27-28 September:
High -level meeting of the
General Assembly on the
appraisal of the United
Nations Global Plan of Action
to Combat Trafficking in
Persons (resolution 71/287).
Watch this site.
***
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