As
UN News Mistakes CAR For
Congo, Inner City Press Asks
Editor Smale For Rules,
Waiting
By Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, March 9 --
The decay or need
for reform at the UN
Department of Public
Information was
shown again on March
9, when DPI's now
flagship UN News
mis-named the UN's
scandal plagued
peacekeeping mission
in the Central
African Republic
“MONUSCO” instead of
its actual name
MINUSCA - and didn't
correct it for four
hours and counting.
Photo here;
DPI also mistakenly
called Najat Rochdi
a "High Commissioner."
This came on the
same day that DPI
chief Alison Smale
was criticized, both
fairly and unfairly,
in a General
Assembly meeting
held in the
Trusteeship Council.
Inner City Press,
covering the meeting
but only with the
escort or minder
that Smale's DPI
requires of it but
not more than a
hundred less
prolific, less
critical and seldom
present
correspondents, put
questions after
Smale's holdover
adviser Hua Jiang
sped out of the
meeting to a critic,
then politely to
Smale herself. She
acknowledged little
action to date on
the criticisms, at
least one of which
should have been
directed to the
Department of
General Assembly and
Conference
Management. But all
bureaucratic
niceties aside, how
can a former New
York Times editor
have presided
without explanation
or response over a
system of press
accreditation with
no rules, with
blatant targeted
restrictions, for
more the six months?
In October Smale
said she
acknowledged the
need for the
“courtesy” of a
response to the
Press' petitions -
which has yet to
come - and on March
9 seemed to indicate
an acknowledgment of
the need for rules.
But where are they?
After the reiterated
exchange, Inner City
Press demurred for
more than ten hours.
But the deadline is
now. Watch this
site.
***
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