By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, June 26 -- What is the UN Department of Public Information doing? Despite questions from the public, including the Free UN Coalition for Access, there is little clarity.
After DPI chose on June 25 not to live webcast the media stakeout of Syria envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, FUNCA asked why. DPI official Stephane Dujarric replied that “in as much as we would like to cover everything live all the time, we just can't.”
This still didn't explain why DPI didn't live stream Brahimi, but worked on the Day of the Seafarer. FUNCA also asked, “Why's UNTV going to skeleton crew July 1?”
The reference was to the UN's new contactor TeamPeople, which is letting long time audio visual engineers go on Friday, telling them it will use a “skeleton crew” through August.
(On June 26, there were brand new people at the UN Security Council stakeout camera, and no one to man the boom microphone.)
This question about the skeleton crew has yet to be answered.
Early on June 26, @FUNCA_info asked a follower from @Streamworks_int, which states that it “has partnered with the United Nations Department of Public Information in a deal which sees Streamworks handling the streaming of United Nations Television (UNTV) coverage of the proceedings taking place at the UN headquarters in New York,” the following question: “is DPI deal with @Streamworks_int outsourcing as with TeamPeople? Is the UN paying?”
FUNCA cc-ed this question to Dujarric, who is in charge of UNTV. But it was Streamworks that replied, “@streamworks_int is partnered with DPI purely as a distribution mechanism for UN content.”
This didn't answer if the UN is paying them -- perhaps it's Dujarric who should answer this -- nor did it explain whyStreamwork's site says to contact them “to book delivery of this stream.”
FUNCA replied, “thanks, but is your content different than on UN Webcast?” And again, no answer yet. Inner City Press finds that it is blocked by Dujarric's twitter account.This is how DPI interfaces with the press? Watch this site.
