By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, October 1 -- The UN's daily noon briefing was postponed on Tuesday during the UN General Assembly speech of Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu, most of which was devoted to critiquing Iran and its new president Hassan Rouhani.
Once Netanyahu had finished, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson Martin Nesirky came into the briefing room and began, reading a press release about the search for chemical weapons in Syria. By this time, Iran was delivering its "right to reply" to Israel's speech. But Nesirky's briefing ran right over it.
Inner City Press, after inquiring about the UN's role in cholera in Haiti, the Congo and denial of visas by the US including to a counselor of the State of Palestine, asked Nesirky what the rule was, for which states a UN noon briefing would be postponed.
Nesirky replied that journalists reporting "hard news" wanted it this way. Video here and embedded below.
But wouldn't "hard news" also include hearing the other side's reply? [Inner City Press obtained and has put it online here.]
Nesirky replied that the journalists "in this building and watching this" agreed with him.
Inner City Press asked if that was based on any polling.
Nesirky said he was a journalist for a quarter of a century, "far longer than you, Matthew." Then he ended the briefing.
It is this type of pre-fabicated common sense, or news sense, this echo chamber of Gulf and Western media, culminating in the UN's Censorship Alliance UNCA spying for Ban's Secretariat (story here), trying to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN, holding faux UN briefings by Gulf and Western supported Syria rebels, for example, that led Inner City Press to co-found the Free UN Coalition for Access @FUNCA_info.
While Ban's Secretariat's response was to threaten to suspend or withdraw Inner City Press' accreditation for merely hanging a sign of the Free UN Coalition for Access on the door of its shared office (while UNCA has five signs), FUNCA will not stop.
The UN is supposed to hear from both sides and treat them equally. The press is supposed to be able to ask questions, and UN spokespeople are supposed to answer them. Watch this site.
