New Media Same As Old Media, UN Women Panel Says, Inner City Press Agrees As to Corporate "New" Media

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 23 -- How new is new media? “Women's relative invisibility in traditional news media has crossed over into digital news delivery platforms,” a UN Women press conference diagnosed on November 23. Inner City Press asked the panelists how they measured this, with Twitter; one wondered if they considered Snapchat, for example, as a digital news delivery platform, given how people watched the US presidential debates over it.

  The underlying study was by WACC, which turns out in the footnotes to stand for World Association for Christian Communication. Inner City Press asked if that doesn't present a problem in some parts of the work, for example the Middle East. The panel, included  Nanette Braun and Karin Achtelstetter, answered that their polling showed it doesn't. Perhaps one hears what one wants to hear.

  The conclusion on new media being like the old, however, resonates. How different is the coverage of US foreign policy by the celebrated, or corporate, new media platforms?

 How could the UN and its Security Council be better covered and informed by social media? Inner City Press asked UK Ambassador Matthew Rycroft this question on Septembe 23, not in the UN but a dozen blocks away at a Digital Diplomacy / “Soft Power” event by Facebook and Portland Communications. #Periscope video here.

   Rycroft told Inner City Press that the best Security Council meetings he's been in have allowed in outside voices; he noted it is still not the custom to tweet from inside consultations, though perhaps it should be.

  Inner City Press asked the US State Department's Moira Whelan about US Ambassador to Libya Deborah Jones quitting Twitter back in March, after one of her tweets about bombing of the Tawerga was attacked. Whelan said the State Department wants to support its diplomats when they come under fire; Rycroft said if a diplomat's intentions were good and well-considered, they should be supported even if things go wrong.

   Facebook's Katie Harbath mentioned that India Prime Minister Modi would be meeting with Mark Zuckerberg; an hour later at the Indian delegation's press conference in the Waldorf Astoria's huge Empire room, there was confirmation of this and other tech meetings for Modi. (Inner City Press asked about UN Peacekeeping, whose chief Herve Ladsous recently linked UN rapes to “R&R” on video, here.)

  There was talk of the UN and social media; from Inner City Press' and the new Free UN Coalition for Access' perspective, the UN itself far too infrequently responds and engages, and much of the corporate press corps resents new media coverage of the UN, for example with the old UN Correspondents Association's Valeria Robecco saying multimedia is NOT a photographer to block coverage of the Pope's visit, click here for that. But we will continue: watch this site.

As Palau Uses Social Media for Oceans SDG As for Sharks, UN Tries to Ban Free Speech, & FUNCA

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 25 -- With fifteen months to go until the “Sustainable Development Goals” are determined by the UN General Assembly, Palau's Ambassador Stuart Beck on Tuesday made the case for an oceans SDG. He recounted that only last night, Palau had its highest tide ever.

  The seas have become so acid, he continued, that mussels and clams are having a hard time forming their shells.

   Inner City Press asked Beck about Palau's shark sanctuary, which became with 600,000 square kilometers and is now up to 12.5 million square kilometers, with subsequent joiners like Mexico, Honduras and Costa Rica, Bahamas, Barbados, Micronesia and the Maldives. If sharks could say thanks, he concluded, they'd give thanks for the sanctuary. Video here from Minute 7:05.

  Accompanying Beck was Ghislaine Maxwell of the TerraMar Project, who said the oceans account for 16% of humanity's food and spoke of using social media in the campaign. It must target all 193 states, Beck pointed out. (Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, it is understood, doesn't know much about the idea.)

It seems Ban's UN doesn't know much about social media or new style network organizations either. The new Free UN Coalition for Access, formed after the old UN Correspondents Association showed itself willing to spy for the UN and seek to get new media thrown out, has been using the Internet and now Twitter to press for media access.

  Now the UN Department of Public Information has threatened to suspend or withdraw Inner City Press' UN accreditation, ostensibly for having a FUNCA sign on the door of its office. (Ironically, it was FUNCA that thanked Beck for his briefing; no UNCA Executive Committee member even came.) It was about this office that a DPI official demanded to speak to Inner City Press in the two minutes between Palau's presentation and the noon briefing.

  Inner City Press asked again for answers to questions it has put to DPI, about double standards for UNCA Executive Committee members with solo offices and two UNCA signs, and crackdowns on free speech. DPI is trying to dictate that FUNCA use old organizational forms. But there is no going back. Watch this site.

Silent on UN Security Council Media Access, UNCA Trolls Say Faceless Is The(ir) Only Way

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 4 -- As the UK as president adopted its UN Security Council program of work on Tuesday morning, outside for the second day in a row -- the second day in years -- there was no media worktable. 

  Inner City Press has been shown a rule that would ban media workspace, and even discourage journalists' presence when the Council is not in formal session.

But it's worse. As Inner City Press and the Free UN Coalition for Access have been advocating for restoration of the media access that existed before, anonymous social media accounts associated with the old UN Correspondents Association have not only been arguing AGAINST media workspace, but presenting their method of work as the only one. 

   This method seems to involve rarely coming to the Security Council stakeout, and only speaking to Western P-3 ambassadors or more frequently their spokespeople.

  One small message, sent mid Tuesday morning, was to chide Inner City Press that "Real journalists report and investigate the news - they don't create it!" That is, real journalists are faceless pass-throughs for those in power.

  That came from an account which previously sent a cell phone photograph from the storage room behind the temporary Security Council location. It is from a journalist at the UN, and one closely involved with UNCA. We will have more on this in the days to come.

  Where was the president of UNCA, Pamela Falk of CBS, during all this? Not at the stakeout. (Several of her board members who have tried to get smaller more investigative press thrown out of the UN were: Louis Charbonneau of Reuters, Tim Witcher of AFP, there's more).

  Nor obviously was Falk doing anything to rein in her UNCA trolls, of which she has been informed since at latest February 22. Rather she was getting ready to try to claim the first question about the Democratic Republic of Congo at the noon briefing, to UN official Kyung-wha Kang.

  To what end? Does she ever report on this on CBS? Or is it simply a make-up question to promote UNCA or herself? These might seem like tough questions, but at least they are on the record. It is UNCA and certain lazy, faceless and resentful big media reporters on its and its affiliate's boards who for months has been hiding behind anonymous accounts. They have hit a new low. Watch this site.