Tearing
Down Flyers,
UNCA Late on
“Open Access”
Board, Book
Burnings?
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
February 12 –
At the UN more
than
elsewhere,
people say
one thing and
do quite
another. Take
for example
the UN
Correspondents
Association.
After
a 2012 in
which several
UNCA
Executive
Committee
members
including
Reuters'
Louis
Charbonneau
and AFP's
Tim
Witcher tried to get
the
investigative
Press thrown
out of the UN,
on December 7
a new Free
UN
Coalition for
Access was
launched.
Beyond
its founding raison
d'etre
of defending
the rights of
journalists to
enter, cover
and get
answers from
the UN,
already FUNCA
has
successfully
advocating for
equality for
those being
treated
unfairly, for
example a wire
service
forced to
share office
space when
others aren't,
a journalist
denied
accreditation
in 2008 (who
is back in)
and fair
treatment at
photo
ops.
These
issues, and
now a critique
of the UN's
accreditation
rules and
Media
Access
Guidelines,
FUNCA has put
on flyers and
taped them on
the wall
next to UNCA's
glassed-in
bulletin board
and the
adjacent
office of
UNCA president
Pamela Falk.
These
flyers have
been torn down
every night.
In many cases
they have been
defaced and
then partially
torn -- while
the UN is
willing to
censor,
it doesn't
tear HALF a
flyer down.
This is UNCA,
which also
tore flyers
off Inner City
Press' cubicle
door, and posted
one mocking an
alleged
victim of
sexual
harassment.
It
is shameful,
leading some
to ask: what's
next, an UNCA
book burning?
But
here is where
the UN-ese
comes in. In
the midst of
this
particularly
censorship
campaign, the
UNCA Executive
Committee, or
at least eight
of its fifteen
members, got
together on
February 7 and
claim to have
approved a
proposal for
an “open
access
bulletin
board.”
How
novel. But how
hypocritical,
after weeks of
tearing down
FUNCA
flyers.
And why should
this UNCA,
after trying
to throw
journalists
out of the UN,
using its
bulletin board
for post a
letter
for months
denouncing
Inner City
Press, and now
mocking an
alleged
victim of
sexual
harassment,
have its own
glassed-in
board?
To
have a
protected
board for one
decaying
group, then
another “open
access” board
for everyone
else, is not
the right
solution. And
UNCA is too
late on this.
Does the next
step or next
new low
involve UNCA
doing book
burnings?
Watch
this site.
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