UN Language Wars in New Draft Resolution in Committee on Information, NHK Added to P3 TV, Farewell to USG

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 1 -- Sometimes the language wars at the UN go behind closed doors. Such was the case on May 1 when the UN Committee on Information considered, paragraph by paragraph, a resolution on the work of the Department of Public Information.

   Back on April 28, delegates from Argentina to Cuba and China asked why the UN Webcast archives are not in Spanish or Chinese, Russian or Arabic. 

  On May 1 the draft resolution's Paragraph 72 was directly on this point; the UN's excuse about its "MAMS" system was not considered compelling. Inner City Press, on behalf of the Free UN Coalition for Access, asked about it on April 29:

Inner City Press: in the Committee on Information, various countries raised issues about why their languages aren’t represented, that the archives of UNTV are not presented in Spanish, Chinese, Russian. It wasn’t really clear to me what the answer on that was--

Spokesman Stephane Dujarric: I think the answer is that it’s an effort that we have tried, [the Department of Public Information] has tried to improve the situation in terms of languages. We are now able to webcast in the six languages; I know that they’re working the technologies to archive it in the six languages. It’s an issue of resources, it’s an issue of mandate, but it’s not an issue of will and of willingness to do more in many languages. And in fact, a lot of the UNTV programming is now done in different languages.

Inner City Press: This is a simpler one, I know it will be the last one for me, I know there’s an event down there, but I wanted to ask on the actual UN EZTV which has channels and it’s an in-house thing, it seems like now, there’s two French channels, there’s two American news channels, there’s Al-Jazeera, there’s no Russian or Chinese channel, so…

Spokesman Dujarric: We’re trying. Part of the issue is what we can get for free, we had to cut costs in terms of subscription so it was a cost issue, but I know it’s an effort on the part of [the Department of Public Information] to add more channels in different languages, but it’s also trying to do it in a way that doesn’t cost us a dime.

Inner City Press: It’s seems like P3 TV, do you see why?

Spokesman: Okay, that’s a comment, not a question.

Two days later there is an addition on UN in-house EZTV, but it is not Chinese or Russian: it's Japan's NHK. So G4 TV?

  More insidiously, France's outgoing Permanent Representative to the UN Gerard Araud on April 15 told a UN accredited correspondent (not this one) who asked a critical question, "You are not a journalist, you are an agent." 

  Inner City Press on behalf of the Free UN Coalition for Access has asked UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric to convey to the French mission the UN's stated position, that correspondents should be treated with respect. So far it has not happened.

  On May 1 responding to a public invitation to a Q&A session with Araud -- for $20 mind you -- Inner City Press went to ask him this question and others. But once at the venue, a law firm on Lexington Avenue, Araud said it was off the record. Bait and switch, on World Press Freedom Day.

  The attacked correspondent has for days asked the UN Correspondents Association's Executive Committee to take some action -- as, we note, it did with respect to another media, and another Ambassador. But the attacked journalist tells Inner City Press that UNCA is "dragging its feet." Others are not surprised.

Footnotes: In fairness, initiatives like DPI's Brown Bag Lunch series with for example UN Security and the UN envoy to Libya were good, and we thank now outgoing Under Secretary General for Public Information Peter Launsky-Tieffenthalfor them. More is possible before he leaves in mid-August. The press and public should have input into the criteria and selection process, the Free UN Coalition for Access maintains -- just as its sign remains and will remain up, even as its most recent flier about reform was torn down April 30.

  We heard on April 30 that USG Launsky-Tieffenthal is leaving, and FUNCA out of respect wrote to him and asked. He is an Austrian civil servant and is being called back to service in Vienna in mid-August.  By contrast other Under Secretaries General like Herve Ladsous still openly refuse particular media's questions, and other USGs rarely if even take questions. Improvements, including a UN Freedom of Information Act and improved UN Media Alert, are needed. Watch this site.

   

With Press & Public To Be Excluded from UN General Assembly in September, UN Won't Even Say Who Decided

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 12 -- During the UN General Assembly's debate week this September there will not be a single seat for the press or public, it was confirmed Monday at the UN. Who has made this decision is not clear.

  The interim General Assembly Hall will have 1000 seats, a UN Security official estimated, compared to 1,800 in the old Hall now under repair. Countries' delegations are being given an addition 560 seats in an adjacent overflow room.

  But for the press and public, which used to be able to witness the proceedings from the fourth floor mezzanine, nothing. Not a single seat. (Also, a media stakeout by North Lawn Conference Room 1, available and used last year, is slated for elimination.)

  The new Free UN Coalition for Access has protested this to the UN Department of Public Information since at least June 10. Commitments made at that time by DPI official Stephane Dujarric, about the working conditions in the six small booth through which camera-persons could watch from above the GA floor, have yet to be acted on.

  Yet DPI is acknowledging that this exclusionary GA Week is coming, holding a pre-GA briefing on August 12. There, when Inner City Press asked a DPI staffer who was responsible for the decision of no seats for the press or public, the answer was the "probably" the Department of General Assembly and Conference Management -- a Department that has not held a press conference in years.

   To be sure who is responsible, the Free UN Coalition for Access asked the UN Spokesperson, through@FUNCA_info. Then the same question was put to Dujarric, through @InnerCityPress since Dujarric is behind a move to ban FUNCA and its questions, even threatening to suspend or withdraw Inner City Press' accreditation for hanging aFUNCA sign on the door of its shared office while UNCA, which leaked internal anti-Press documents to Dujarric, has no fewer then five signs, and a big UN room in which it holdspoliticized events publicized only to those who pay it money as dues. 

  (UNCA's 2013 president Pamela Falk of CBS was not present for Monday's pre-GA briefing. As noted, increasingly she just uses, or tries to use, UNCA, to spread or even create corporate CBS content. Nor was her first vice president, Louis Charbonneau of Reuters, who leaked the internal UNCA documents to Dujarric immediately after promising not to. Story here, audio here, document here.)

After a detailed briefing about how live broadcasts shots can be obtained, this year on the lawn in front of the UN rather than the old Press Island, Inner City Press for FUNCA asked how the day's "Stress Test" of the UN's audio - visual broadcasting system had gone. Click here for Inner City Press' curtain raiser on the test.

While the results are not yet in, Inner City Press confirmed on Monday that in a Town Hall meeting on July 15, DPI's chief acknowledged to DPI staff the problems with the new "MAMS" system, blaming them on firewalls and saying that it was being dealt with through Department of Management chief Yukio Takasu. So who is responsible? Watch this site.

Footnote: DPI's chief at the July 15 town hall meeting made much of new technology, social media, responsiveness. So it is striking that Dujarric and DPI have actually become less responsive to press access issues politely but publicly raised through social media. This UN is closing in on itself; FUNCA will continue to oppose that.

   

After UN's Herve Ladsous Spoonfeeds Half Answers of ICP's Questions to Another & DPI Stonewalls, UNCA Trolls in Defense - Anonymously

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 10 -- The degree of collusion, if not to say outright corruption, between UN officials and the Correspondents Association which ostensibly cover them was shown again today.

  After a week in which June 24 questions by Inner City Press for UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous about theUN Mine Action Service's Somalia boss David Bax sharing genetic information from bombings with US authorities werespoon-fed to another media, on Saturday Inner City Press published the first in a series on Ladsous' tenure at the UN, here.

  Inner City Press also on Saturday published an initial curtain-raiser for the UN's so-called "Stress Test" of its problem-plagued UN TV and MAMS audio - visual system,embedding complaints that have been raised, here.

  Hours later, a social media account associated with UNCA came to the defense of Ladsous and his lapdog -- anonymously, of course. Since Inner City Press quit UNCA, which through first vice president Louis Charbonneau of Reuters demonstrably spied for the UN, handing internal anti-Press UNCA documents to the UN's Stephane Dujarric, here, and co-founded the Free UN Coalition for Access in December 2012, this has been going on.

  UNCA "leaders'" anonymous social media trolling began in January 2013. Dujarric and above him within the UN Department of Public Information are aware of it; it was raised at a February 2013 meeting after which Dujarric issued a threat-letter to Inner City Press in defense of his source, Charbonneau, and UNCA's 2013 president Pamela Falk of CBS News. (That was a conflict of interest.)

  The anonymous trolling was raised to Reuters big wigs including Stephen J. Adler, and Reuters' former social media editor Anthony De Rosa, now with Circa.

  Inner City Press and FUNCA have no problems responding to critical questions online -- Inner City Press did so, regarding the Democratic Republic of the Congo, earlier on Saturday afternoon.

  But for big media from Reuters and CBS News for to be associated with ANONYMOUS trolling, is too much. UNCA, in this the UN Cowardice Association, already got DPI through Dujarric to try to threaten Inner City Press'accreditation with suspension or withdrawal for hanging a sign of the Free UN Coalition for Access on the door of its shared office, while UNCA now has five signs.

  UNCA is given a big room in the UN, S-310, which it locks and uses for faux UN briefings, with the "Chefs to the Chefs" and the (Saudi-supported) Syrian opposition, promoted only to those which pay it money. Inner City Press' question about that at the UN's noon briefing have still not been answered. This too, now, is a conflict of interest.

  For months, Inner City Press and FUNCA have made all of these critiques on the record, in their names. The UN Cowardice Association, Ban Ki-moon's exclusive media partner, continues to take another, lower road. We'll have more on and about this. Watch this site.

   

At UN, Stress Test of A/V Snafus, Access Blockages Raised by FUNCA Ignored by DPI While UN Missions Respond

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 10 -- The UN spend millions of dollars on a new audio - visual conference system but for weeks there have been complaints about delays, malfunctions, and lack of accountability. There has been a lack of responsiveness, too.

  Some of the UN official most responsible for the snafus in the new system chose the time of shift-over as they time to go on vacation; even when back, they refused to respond to complaints.

  For example, the new Free UN Coalition for Access after fielding complaints both from inside UN headquarters and from those seeking to access the UN from outside, raised the issues to UN Webcast, UN TV, UN Media Accreditation and Liaison Unit and their supervisor, Stephane Dujarric -- all without recent response.

   The complaints passed on by @FUNCA_info have ranged from delays in putting online archived video of briefings through the so-called MAMS system, to blockages and unnecessarily deteriorated working conditions for journalists at the Security Council stakeout; to blackouts on UN EVTV, for example of BBC, and low sound volume and quality over the live webcast, raised by @FUNCA_Questions.

  @FUNCA_info has also raised, without explanation, favoritism and lack of transparency in the issues of access tickets (for example to Malala Day), to DPI's summaries of meetings being politicized (and even intentionally different in different languages), which was complained of by India in the last Committee on Information meeting, but happened again on Latin American ministers meeting with Ban Ki-moon about NSA spying and Edward Snowden , without explanation once raised.

  FUNCA also provides praise where appropriate, like here. Ironically, countries' mission to the UN answer FUNCA's access questions, while those in the UN charged with these issues try not to. That's this UN.

  UN staff sources describe to Inner City Press and FUNCA a "Town Hall" meeting in mid July in which the Department of Public Information, which controls the above-named units, said that the Department of Management led by Yukio Takasu promised it would all be workin "by the General Assembly," meaning the General Debate week in late September.

  But DPI has not even taken action on simple problems raised to it early in the summer. On June 10, FUNCA and Inner City Press e-mailed Dujarric and others in DPI a description of the photo booths above the floor of the new / interim General Assembly Hall, with tables, a broken chair, and no interpretation of the speeches taking place on the floor.

  A commitment was made to act on it. But nothing has been done since, even as it was raised again in connection with example with a GA session on Syria, or a staged Youth Day event at which Dujarric was present, taking and tweeting photographs of Ban Ki-moon.

  It is noteworthy that at least some in DPI are loud proponents of social media, but refuse to respond to back issues raised to them in such media. Meanwhile their units like UN Webcast tweet welcomes to the new US Ambassador, which they don't do for any other country. Perhaps they think that will give them the immunity the UN claims in Haiti.

  Meanwhile by enforcing an anachronistic monopoly for the old UN Correspondents Association they cut off other means of communication, and have even threatened Inner City Press' accreditation with suspension or withdrawal for merely hanging a sign of the Free UN Coalition for Accesson the door of its shared office, while UNCA now has five signs. It is pathetic.

  On Friday, August 9, Ban's associate spokesperson Farhan Haq read out a short announcement:

On Monday, 12 August, the Department of Public Information and other offices at UN Headquarters will be performing a large-scale testing of the new audio-visual conferencing system. During this test, we will be simulating meetings throughout the system to check the performance and work flows during peak demand periods for the forthcoming General Assembly. This exercise will include the simultaneous testing of every conference room and every studio in the facility. Some of this activity may be seen on the IPTV/EZTV system, and you may experience some disruptions during the time of the test.

  Later on Friday, a range of UN staff contacted Inner City Press, and some explicitly FUNCA, with information about this so-called "stress test." One said, "It's a total fiasco, Patrick Morrrison got his D-1 and he's leaving, money is being wasted everywhere and no one, least of all DPI, is taking responsibility."

   Several urged the Free UN Coalition for Access to keep pushing the issue. And so we will, seeking as from FUNCA's founding to make the UN more accessible, without favoritism or intimidation. Watch this site.

   

UN Public Info on Kenya & Mali, Reports Withheld, Press Raid Photos Leaked?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 22 -- The UN Department of Public Information has at least three constituencies: the 193 member states which own the UN, the journalists which DPI accredits to enter the UN, and last and sometimes least the public.

  On Monday the top leadership of DPI took questions from the member states on the Committee on Information. Japan asked what has been done to avoid another communications failure like after Hurricane Sandy last Fall. 

   The US asked how DPI evaluates itself and its impact. Spain asked about facilities for journalists. Russia asked for more translation, particularly of the webcast.

  Answers to these varied. On self-assessment not much was said. On Sandy, DPI's chief to his credit admitted that there had been failures. On media space, it was said the move-back to the renovated Secretariat will take place “in the next few months.” (This as an e-mail named May 10 as the date.)

Many promises were made how the webcast will get better after something called MAMS, the Media Asset Management System.

  But in the real world, despite months of complaints, DPI still hasn't gotten its existing webcast able to stream on the Android platform for smart phones. 

  Though perhaps not DPI's fault, at the recent Rwanda genocide memorial, a survivor's story was not only cut off but ended, simply so Secretary General Ban Ki-moon could go to another event.

  More substantively, at least in the two Rwanda memorial events Inner City Press attended, the UN did not in any way acknowledge its role in 1994, with peacekeepers pulled out and the willful ignoring of memos about the arming of the Hutu genocidaires.

  Sometimes DPI has a tough story to try to tell. On this, Ban's head of Peacekeeping Herve Ladsous is not only unwilling to answer Press questions, but he's now shown to have argued during the 1994 genocide in favor of helping the genocidaire government flee to safety in Eastern Congo.

This is a hard sell -- but when Ladsous had his spokesman seize the UNTV microphone ostensibly run by DPI, there was no public response, just more whispering. And so problems persist.

  In the spirit of fairness, among positive DPI projects described on Monday were a “sports for peaceful elections” program in Kenya, complete with Google+ Hangout, and the involvement of a DPI staffer in DPKO's - that is, Ladsous' -- mission to northern Mali. 

  This, it was said, was described to member states. But how about to journalists and more importantly the public?

  That can be a contradiction. Last week Inner City Press wrote to DPI asking why UN reports, for example the recent one on Western Sahara, are withheld from the public by not being put on the UN's website even when they are complete, and handed in paper form to some.

DPI has yet to respond -- it has still not formally responded to 10 proposed reforms submitted to it in February by the Free UN Coalition for Access -- but when Inner City Press spoke Monday afternoon with member states about it, many also expressed outrage.

  Several said the UN's lack of transparency and selective release helps the UN reports be spun in a particular way, before people in their country can even see the underlying report.

  So the question on this is, does DPI and the UN view its duty as to the public, or to a smaller subset, not even member states? Because if member states and their desire for translation is being cited, then member states have to be consulted.

  The UN Secretariat, including Ban Ki-moon's office and DPI, have no right to keep secrets -- from members states, and thus from the public. To use the self-interest of some media as ground-cover for a lack of transparency is shameful. (That, however, is why they call it the UN's Censorship Alliance.)

  In candor, we believe a key need at DPI is due process rights for journalists, so big media like Reuters' Louis Charbonneau and Michelle Nichols and AFP's Tim Witcher are no longer emboldened to file false complaints against smaller more investigative media, and even so the expression of opinions by DPI's accreditation staff does not come off, as it does now, as censorship.

  (Click here on DPI's recent “urgent” inquiry into a single Press tweet mentioning #WW2.)

  There is also the matter of DPI finally coming clear on how photos taken during its raid on Inner City Press' office on March 18 were leaked to BuzzFeed, immediately after that publication contacted Ban's Office of the Spokesperson to ask about the raid.

  Whom did DPI allow to take photographs? DPI's failure to answer only leads, inevitably, to questions about UNCA president Pamela Falk of CBS, who did take photographs. 

  To whom were photographs given, such that they were then given to BuzzFeed? It's simple, but it must be answered. Why not take the same approach as after Hurricane Sandy?Watch this site.