UNITED
NATIONS, July
17 -- When
NBC's Richard
Engel exited
the UN
Security
Council on
Wednesday
after advising
Council
members to
distinguish
between
journalists
who deserve
their
protection and
activists,
“Tweeters” and
state
broadcasters
who don't,
Inner City
Press
asked him a
question.
Referring
to
whistleblower
Edward
Snowden's
disclosure of
surveillance
programs
to the
Guardian as
well as
Washington
Post, Inner
City Press
asked
Engel, “Glenn
Greenwald, is
he a
journalist or
not a
journalist?”
"I
don't know
enough about
Glenn
Greenwald,”
Engel said.
“Somebody
has to make a
judgment call
someday of
when you stop
being a
journalist and
and when you
are fully an
activist.”
And
then Engel was
gone, as
Security
Council
members
continued
“debating”
the matter.
South Korea
and Australia
urged more
protection for
bloggers, for
example.
But
another of the
initial
speakers,
Kathleen
Carroll of
Associated
Press,
neglected to
make an
obvious point:
that the US
government,
which holds
the UN
Security
Council
presidency for
July and
scheduled
this debate,
spied on AP.
Doesn't this
bring up
another form
of
protection
that
journalists
need?
Engel
said that
state
broadcasters
were not
journalists,
given the
example
of state TV in
Syria. When
asked about
Voice of
America he
said that
is somehow
different.
Inner City
Press has recently covered that
debate, here
-- but note
that Voice
of America's
editor Steve
Redisch
wrote to the
UN asking it
to “review”
the
accreditation
of Inner
City Press.
Documents
begrudgingly
obtained by
Inner City
Press under
the US Freedom
of
Information
Act -- since
VOA is a state
broadcaster --
show that VOA
said it had support
for this
request from
Reuters, Agence
France
Presse
(represented
Wednesday in
the Council)
and even the UN
Correspondents
Association,
click here for
more on that.
French
Ambassador
Gerard Araud
scheduled and
then
un-scheduled a
question
and answer
session at
11:30; the new
Free
UN Coalition
for Access
(FUNCA)
asked
his mission
what France
has done on
the case of Chadian blogger
Makaila,
so far without
answer.
FUNCA
was
established to
protect
journalists,
defined more
broadly than
Richard Engel
proposed, from
these type of
attacks. The
UN's response?
To
threaten to
suspend or
withdraw the
accreditation
of Inner City
Press for merely hanging a
FUNCA sign on
the door of
Room S-303,
a story up
from the
Security
Council.
One
form of
protection of
journalists
was discussed
in the UN
Security
Council
Wednesday
morning. But
many other
forms were
not. Watch
this
site.
, 
