For
UN General Assembly Week,
UN Limits "Pooling" to Insider Group,
UNexplained
By Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS,
September 14 – The UN is both
unprepared and unfair in the
run-up to the 72nd General
Assembly high level week, which
the UN has bragged will include
90 heads of state, five vice
presidents, 36 heads of
government, 3 deputy prime
ministers and 55 ministers - but
NOT Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi.
Not only access, but also
"pooling" opportunities, are
limited without disclosure to
insider correspondents, even for
a "UN reform" event. And when
Inner City Press on September 14
asked the UN Spokesman why, he
said to ask the same Department
of Public
Information
which didn't
disclose the
pool opportunities,
and whose new
chief has not
answered
questions. At
a background briefing on
September 8, another DPI
official told Inner City Press
that “there will be a secondary
pass for 'Resident
Correspondents' 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. And now
the UN has limited its offer of
"pooling" opportunities to this
group, several of whose members,
disgusted, forwarded this to
Inner City Press and the
alternative Free UN Coalition
for Access: "Dear colleagues, We
have been notified by MALU of
the approval for pool reporters
at the following events during
UNGA:Monday, September 18th:
FAMILY PHOTO after President
Trump's reform event: PRINT: 1
reporter, VIDEO: 1 reporter,
PHOTO: 1 reporter. Tuesday,
September 19th: SG's STATE
LUNCHEON: 1:15 - 2:45, Delegates
Lounge: PRINT: 4 reporters,
VIDEO: 3 reporters, PHOTO: 3
reporters.Sherwin
Bryce-Pease,
President,
United Nations
Correspondents
Association."
This was only sent to people who
pay UNCA money, and / or haven't
(yet) chosen to quit the group,
as Inner City Press did after
seeing it host a Sri Lanka war
crimes denial film for a
previous tenant, here.
But UN Spokesman Stephane Dujurric,
who previously lent "his" UN
Press Briefing Room to UNCA and
evicted Inner City Press for
seeking to cover the event,
refused to explain, beyond
confirming that Alison Smale has
begun work. We'll see. Along
with the limitation of passes to
the UN Conference Building's 1B
negotiated (only) with UNCA,
this is inconsistent with the
principles of freedom of press,
and freedom of association, and
limits access. We'll have more
on this. This Department of
Public Information has been
headless since April 1 until
this week; New York Times
journalist Alison Smale was
named by Secretary General
Antonio Guterres as replacement.
She has arrived but 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.
***
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