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At UN, Press Relations Veer from
Stonewalling on Myanmar to Crackdown on Content from UN Peacekeeping to
Accreditation
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: Media Analysis
UNITED
NATIONS, September 3 -- The
UN's relations with the press go from bad to worse.
The UN tracks how it is covered
in the press, and judges each selected article as positive, negative or
neutral. The compilation is available on the UN's in-house computer
system,
iSeek. For the past two weeks, the majority of the selected negative
stories
have concerned Myanmar and Ban Ki-moon's envoy Ibrahim Gambari not
having met
with Aung San Suu Kyi or military leader Than Shwe. Click here
for an article, here
about UK, here
for surreal YouTube, from Minute 8:30, showing Gambari's staff
outside The Lady's home with bullhorn.
Still, for the ten days
since Gambari left Myanmar, the UN has
repeatedly refused requests by Inner City
Press and others for any comment on the visit and what, if
anything, was
accomplished. This stonewalling continued even after Gambari briefed
Ban in
Turin, and after Gambari returned to New York. Wednesday Inner City
Press was
told that Gambari will only speak after he speaks to the Security
Council, a
date for which had not been set. Great public relations.
But it gets worse, at UN Peacekeeping and in Ban's
own office. On Wednesday things were
arranged so that
Ban's spokesperson tried to take only a handful of questions, after
starting
the noon briefing late. This gave rise to complaints, video here,
at (abrupt) end.
Then it was announced, by email,
that there
would not even been any questions and answers with Ban's spokesperson
on Thursday,
ostensibly because Ban will be in the briefing room at 11:30 a.m.. Subsequently it was clarified that Ban will
not be taking any questions on Thursday, he will only deliver "opening
remarks" about a study, then leave two other officials to face
questions.
UN Peacekeeping in North Kivu, DRC,
ammo (and Gambari' staff's bullhorn) not shown
Meanwhile, faced with critical reporting, UN
Peacekeeping repeatedly
tries to threaten independent journalists, invoking media accreditation
while
refusing for weeks to answer basic financial questions. Back
in July, not liking an analysis
piece
about outgoing Peacekeeping chief Jean-Marie Guehenno implicitly
criticizing
Security Council decisions to deploy missions in Darfur and,
prospectively,
Somalia, Guehenno's spokesman Nick Birnback formally asked for
clarification,
and send a copy of his demand to the UN's Media Accreditation and
Liaison Unit.
Since this is the unit that decides on reporters' access to the UN, the
threat
was clear, and there was no other reason to have sent a copy to the
MALU unit.
Inner City Press noted to Birnback and MALU that it was inappropriate
to mix
disagreement with critical coverage with accreditation, then left it at
that.
Now in September, Peacekeeping's Birnback has done
it again. The
difference this time is that, upon inquiry, an official in charge of
MALU
states that she asked to be copied on Birnback's correspondence with
Inner City
Press. This seems doubly inappropriate -- ironically, this official
also functions as Gambari's spokesperson, and as noted above stood with
bullhorn outside Aung San Suu Kyi's house. We'll write it off to
stress. But more generally, as we've said before, the
First Amendment stops on First Avenue.
While devoting time to trying to discourage critical
coverage, the UN is
remiss in answering questions. Several sets of questions have been
pending at
UN Peacekeeping for more than a month; simple questions posed
Wednesday, such
as Jane Holl Lute's total compensation, what type of ammunition UN
peacekeepers
in the Congo used in responding to civilian demonstrators and the UN Mission
in Kosovo's chief legal officer's lobbying for Kosovo -- topics to
be covered
later today on this site -- went unanswered. As noted, Thursday there
will not
be any Q&A with Ban or even his Spokesperson. He will be available,
it is
said, on September 11. We'll be there.
Watch
this
site. And this (on
South Ossetia),
this, on
Russia-Georgia,
and
this --
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