By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, March 1 – The UN has seen some loud if not illuminating debates in its day, for example Nikita Khrushchev banging his shoe on the Security Council table.
During the Russia - Georgia conflict, Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin memorably asked if US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad had lost his earpiece.
But the United Nations' media apparatus, the UN's Censorship Alliance, can't seem to handle any on the record debate. One week ago, current UNCA president Pamela Falk screamed at Inner City Press, “you call yourself a journalist?”
Inner City Press had already said, also loudly, “you are on the record,” and Falk had replied, “He's going to write about this.” Audio here.
But when Inner City Press did write about it, the response was from the boss of UN Media Accreditation Stephane Dujarric, criticizing Inner City Press for the article, falsely claiming that the session in which UNCA's Falk screamed had been off the record.
Inner City Press immediately replied and asked for an explanation of Dujarric's formal letter of complaint -- but in the 48 hours since, Dujarric has not provided any explanation much less retraction of the letter, now exposed as false.
Thirty six hours into his radio silence, Inner City Press published a media critique mentioning and linking to a few of the tweets of UNCA's Pamela Falk, who promoted both the UNCA executive committee and herself, as a hashtag and pictured at a CBS Up To The Minute desk.
Inner City Press noted that the tweets re-heated three day old news and tweeted it as Western countries' missions to the UN, and erred in placing the Iran nuclear talks in Rome instead of Almaty.
What was Falk's response?
To take down each and every tweet that Inner City Presslinked to, as if they had never been on the Internet. Is that a best practice for a president of the United Nations Correspondents Association, who demands of others, “You call yourself a journalist?”
While CBS did censor its subsidiary CNET from reporting, is the absolute disappearing of already reported content consistent with CBS's (devolving) rules?
One can't directly and diplomatically ask since Falk, a lawyer, darkly and on the record told Inner City Press that even writing to media companies "might be a crime." Audio here.
What did the UN's Dujarric do in the midst of this, rather than responding in any way to Inner City Press' request for an explanation of his false letter which sought to Ban theFree UN Coalition for Access from pressing forward with detailed reforms to the UN's media rules?
Dujarric, a high but not the highest official in the UN Department of PUBLIC Information moved to block Inner City Press from viewing his Twitter account, on which for example he congratulates and jokes with a correspondent, Margaret Besheer, whose media the Voice of America on June 20, 2012 asked Dujarric to review the accreditation of Inner City Press.
Might this tweet too, like Falk's, now simply disappear?
There are at least two ironies in all this. UNCA “leaders,” ever since Inner City Press co-founded the Free UN Coalition for Access, have set up at least four anonymous twitter accounts to mock those joining FUNCA and to tell countries' missions to the UN that Inner City Press, renamed, is trying to collect money not to investigate that.
On that dirty trick, Dujarric wrote no letter of complaint.
In fact, before blocking Inner City Press from viewing his tweets, Dujarric tweeted at Inner City Press in defense of the UN Security Council, or France, it wasn't clear.
That's fine - but when Inner City Press begin a similar critique, the UN's “public” information official's response is to block access.
A UN “public” information official who selectively blocks some but not all UN correspondents from his twitter account, while refusing to explain a formal letter shown to be false? This is accountability? Watch this site.
