Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
www.innercitypress.com/un1leakerbeware061309.html
UNITED NATIONS, June 13 -- As the UN gears up to empty its Headquarters and knock down all the walls, a rift with the press corps has come into public view. It has to do with walls, and impacts the ability to report on and expose corruption and dysfunctions brought to light by whistleblowers.
At Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's June 11 press conference, Mr. Ban was asked if he favors "current plans by UN management" to "start charging journalists for working space" or "to not provide proper office enclosure and security"?
The issue first came to light last July when a memo was leaked to Inner City Press from within the Office of the Under Secretary General for Management, Angela Kane, stating that Ms. Kane wanted a list of other international or governmental organizations which, unlike UN Headquarters for sixty years, charge the press for space.
After Inner City Press published this memo, which a whistleblower had slipped under the door of Inner City Press' office on the fourth floor of the UN, the correspondents' association was given assurances by the Department of Public Information that Ms. Kane's idea would not be implemented, that it was in essence merely an intellectual exercise.
But months later, following more leaks from within Ms. Kane's office including about lack of U.S. doctors' licenses by those prescribing narcotics in the UN and most recently her memo to Ban Ki-moon proposing, among other things, to complain to Google News about Inner City Press, and to hire outside counsel to send "cease and desist... letters before action" to Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and Inner City Press, the correspondents were told to either pay $23,000 for offices with walls and doors, or to be moved into open air offices without doors or walls.
After reporting that this would drive media out of the UN, the proposal was modified to de-emphasize the demand for money, but to make mandatory the loss of confidentiality. On the eve of Ban's press conference, Ban's senior advisor Kim Won-soo and his spokesperson Michele Montas, along with the head of the Capital Master Plan Michael Adlerstein -- whose boss Angela Kane was and is in Nairobi at a meeting between Management and labor that does not include the UN's New York Staff Union -- presented a detailed proposal with less then floor to ceiling walls.
A counter proposal described to Inner City Press late on June 12 -- again in its fourth floor office with its closing door -- would give doors and walls to wire services but not "print" journalists, defined to include a range from Inner City Press to the Washington Post. (The Washington Post, as Inner City Press exclusively reported, already plans to close its UN bureau before the end of the year.)
Inner City Press told the lead negotiator that this report would be published and asked him, what is the distinction between a wire service and a journalistic entity which reports in whatever medium on UN corruption, and needs to offer confidentiality to its sources?
This need is not limited to UN corruption whistleblowers -- earlier this month, when the draft resolution for sanctions on North Korea for its nuclear test was leaked, it was to this online publication and not a TV station or a wire. (In fact, the Associated Press along with Japanese wires, the Times of London and Washington Post credited Inner City Press for the exclusive.)
So who, then, is behind the UN's push to either drive the press out by charging thousands of dollars, or drive it out into the open where whistleblowers cannot approach? Leaked documents point to Angela Kane, who has previously told Inner City Press, in writing, that she has no time to answer questions, that they should be "asked in the noon briefing."
In that briefing room last month, when asked by Inner City Press about a range of management issues from disparities in punishment in a UN pornography ring complained off by whistleblower staff to the UN Medical Service complaints, Ms. Kane said that if any part of a complainant's story is not verified, he or she is not a whistleblower. This means that, even on paper, no protection against retaliation would be offered.
Notably, the Capital Master Plan was modified to place Ms. Kane's office on the third floor of what is now the library, directly above where the Press will be. As modified, the Press will have neither walls nor door. The message? Whistleblowers beware.
Footnotes: the correspondents' association's June 12 meeting at which a negotiating team was named and the "no walls for print media" counterproposal was reportedly developed was, ironically, closed to the Press and other rank and file members of the association. While some summary was graciously provided afterwards, others say that with workmen from the UN's contractor Skanska already finalizing layouts in the so-called swing space, the battle is being lost.
The "consultations" that Mr. Ban referred to in his scripted press conference answer are being conducted by his deputy chief of staff Kim Won-soo, who immediately after the press conference approached the questioner to say, let us continue the dialogue, but "you broken our agreement." This last presumably referred to Kim's request that the issue not be publicly raised in the press conference. While the lead negotiator, to whom Kim's accusation was directed, tried to play it down, another active correspondent replied, "We are not sorry, Mr. Kim."
It's said that Kim either does not understand or acknowledge reporters' need for confidentiality or independence -- he once told Inner City Press to "report nicely on Angela Kane" -- or resents that the media which has come to New York from South Korea to cover Ban Ki-moon do not yet have the closed offices of long-time UN correspondents. That of course could be solved. To some it appears only a pretext. Watch this site.
