By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, April 9 -- What is the function of what's called the UN Correspondents Association? Tomorrow April 10 it is summoning its members to “an informal off-the-record meeting” with the “Deputy Director, Media Hub of the Americas, U.S. Department of State Bureau of Public Affairs.”
The summons, sent by UNCA President Giampaolo Pioli, links to a self-description of this US Bureau of Public Affairs, that “PA/IME works in close collaboration with State Department and interagency colleagues to create and manage tools to ensure accurate coverage of U.S. foreign policy by major international media.”
UNCA represents only part of the UN press corps. This writer, for example, quit the group after 2012. UNCA is said by UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric to receive the first question in the UN Press Briefing Room “by tradition,” even after UNCA's Executive Board tried to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN for its reporting about Sri Lanka, UN Peacekeeping and colonialism (Herve Ladsous) among other topics.
Now UNCA wants to facilitate “accurate coverage of U.S. foreign policy.” Does it perform this service for other countries?
Inner City Press, like the new Free UN Coalition for Access which it co-founded after quitting UNCA, is not against accurate coverage. Last month, Inner City Press asked the US State Department about Yemen (including the decision not to evacuate Yemeni Americans from the country), Cuba (the US restrictions on its diplomats at the UN), the Maldives, Middle East and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In each case, Inner City Press reported the answers in full, where possible with video.
But why provide this platform for one country and not others? Earlier on April 10 UNCA will have a presentation by a former US CIA employee who served in Saipan, Korea, Vietnam and "Burma," as the UNCA notice puts it.
What has happened to this UNCA under Pioli and presumably current Executive Committee members fromReuters, the US Broadcast Board of Governors and ANSA? And how now can the UN continue to “partner” with UNCA, exclusively, using this partial group as a proxy for the wider press corps?
Earlier on April 9, when the UN with little notice canceled its question and answer noon briefing in deference to a"press encounter" with Ban Ki-moon at which Dujarric handpicked the questioners and Ban notably did not call for a halt or even pause in airstrikes on Yemen, UNCA said nothing. (They will, however, have a "Prosecco toast" with Ban later in the month.)
The Free UN Coalition spoke up in criticism, as here. We'll have more on and of this.
