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Indybay Feature

United Nations Rejects Indymedia

by gkd
Lorenzo Komboa Ervin and JoNina Abron tried to get freelance media credentials through several independent media sources, including San Francisco Indymedia. Read on...
To Whom It May Concern
United Nations Office of Media Accreditation

I am writing to protest the rejection by the United Nations Office of Media Accreditation of my applications and those of Lorenzo Ervin for press credentials as news correspondents at the United Nations World Conference Against Racism.

This evening, in phone calls to me and Mr. Ervin, a female member of your staff informed us that our applications as correspondents for Black Scholar magazine and The Black World Today were denied because we are not full-time employees of these African-American news organizations.

The staff member, whose name we did not get, said that Mr. Ervin and I were also rejected as correspondents for WIDR Radio, a student-run station at Western Michigan University (WMU) where I am an associate professor of communication. I was told that press credentials for the WCAR will not be issued to non-profit organizations. WIDR is affiliated with a university, which is a non-profit organization.

Bottom line, the staff member said, the United Nations will not give media credentials to free lance journalists. She said that Mr. Ervin and I are considered free lance journalists because we are not full-time employees of The Black World Today, WIDR Radio, or the Black Scholar magazine (for which I was formerly the managing editor). Our applications were rejected even though they included letters of assignment from the publisher and editor of the Black Scholar, the national editor of The Black World Today, and the news director of WIDR Radio.

Unlike such mainstream news organizations as CNN and the New York Times, most African-American and student news organizations can rarely afford to send full-time reporters to an international conference that is held abroad like the WCAR. Consequently, since Mr. Ervin and I will be in Durban for the NGO Forum, we agreed to be unpaid correspondents at the WCAR for the Black Scholar, The Black World Today, and WIDR Radio. We did so because for a significant number of people, these three news organizations will serve as the primary sources of information about the WCAR.

Mr. Ervin and I are experienced African-American journalists, who for the past 30 years have each written about news and issues that are frequently ignored by the mainstream press in the United States. Mr. Ervin is also an experienced radio broadcaster.

As a member of the faculty at Western Michigan University, I want to point out that WIDR Radio serves the some 28,000 students who attend the university, as well as many of the approximately 90,000 people who live in the city and county of Kalamazoo, Michigan, where the university is located. I am a journalism educator, and I am appalled that the U.N. Office of Media Accreditation would deny a student-run radio station at a major university the opportunity to provide news coverage of an historic event like the WCAR.

The United Nations\' denial of media credentials to free lance journalists like Mr. Ervin and me, who have been assigned by bona fide news organizations to cover the WCAR, will give the mainstream media a virtual monopoly at the conference. As a result, the diversity of news coverage will be severely weakened. This is censorship, in effect.

As an African-American, I cannot help but wonder if the exclusion of free lance journalists from covering the proceedings inside the WCAR is tied to the threat of the United States to boycott the conference if the issue of reparations for the enslavement of Africans and their descendants is on the agenda. I believe that in kowtowing to the U.S. government, the conference conveners are stifling the ability of the Black press to report on the vital issues of the WCAR, thereby allowing only a pro-government position to be broadcast or published.

I am sending a copy of this letter to NGOs, journalists\' organizations, human rights activists and others around the world, asking them to protest this censorship by the U.N. Office of Media Accreditation.

Sincerely,
JoNina M. Abron
Kalamazoo, Michigan

by Judy
Government doesn't work, never has in history of mankind. Look a Hitler and Stalin! And the UN will be worse!

Our Constitution is the best in history and the Bill of Rights. Let's stick with that! Also, there was a law that no BUREAUCRAT could vote ealier. Who changed that? There was also a law that no lawyer could be a politician. Let's get that back! Also, most media guys are members of the CFR. What are they doing in these meetings without us?! And Woodrow Wilson said in 1913 that people were afraid of the power around them, they were afraid to talk. Think how bad it is now. With the Federal Reserve he feared he had ruined the country with all the bankers in government. Let's get them out. Get the elites out. Get the bureaucrats out - there wre 500,000 - now there are 17 million bureacrats - FIRE THEM! And don't let them vote! First of all, most of them are too stupid. They can't get real work so they have to live off our tax money and then harasss and intimidate and violate us - with our money! WHen are we going to stop this nonsense, this criminality! What gives them the right to disrespect us! We pay them! They are supposed to SERVE us - not control us! But they are too stupid to know this. A cop has to have an IQ below 100 now - so they are so stupid they reallyare dangerous!
by anti-Fascist
What kind of drivel is this? The U.S. Constitution was written up by a collection of white Anglo-Saxon slave-owning good'ol boys for the benefit of "their kind" ONLY! Even after a couple of centuries of "amendments" plus one of the deadliest civil wars in history, it still DOESN'T BEGIN to deliver justice to the people of color, and economically dispossesed it was NEVER ORIGINALLY INTENDED TO PROTECT anyway! It was written( and still is) with DELIBERATE ambiguity to leave WIDE OPEN the DOOR TO GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION for the benefit of the predominantly Anglo-Saxon ruling class(this is where "manifest destiny" comes in). It's only USEFUL function is as ASS-WIPE PAPER!!!
The U.N. UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS, on the other hand, is SPECIFICALLY and ORIGINALLY intended to benefit and protect the rights of EVERY HUMAN BEING ON THIS PLANET EARTH(or at least every member nation on Earth). The main reason the U.N. is failing in this mission is primarily because of the meddling and intimidation of the United States government which is STILL COMMITTED to the WHITE SUPREMACIST "MANIFEST DESTINY"!!!
by Bretton (brettjones69 [at] yahoo.com)
The corporate media is rail-roading the truth yet again. We must fight this. The corporate grip is present all the way in Durbin. What is the number/e-mail address for the U.N. Office of Media Accreditation? We need to know.
by Tomas
Somebody post e-mail adresses and fax number to the UN Office of Media Accreditation so we know were to send our protests!
by Tomas
The fax number for the UN Media Accreditation and Liaison Unit is (212) 963-4642. I couldn't find an e-mail address but their postal address is: UNITAR Bldg., 801, United Nations Plaza, Pass and Identification Unit, on the corner of 45th Street & First Avenue.
The UNs website is at http://www.un.org if you want to search for more contact info.
by richard (zpub2000 [at] yahoo.com)
Department of Public Information & Conference Secretariat

vasic [at] un.org
husbands [at] un.org
tshiawl.hchr [at] unog.ch

inquiries from NGOs ...

lwiseberg.hchr [at] unog.ch
ffenniche.hchr [at] unog.ch
saragon.hchr [at] unog.ch
bvanhout.hchr [at] unog.ch

I sent an email to all asking about this story
by len
i always thought that the constitution, or many parts of it, upheld universal truths that everyone should live by. that people took freedom into their own hands and molded it to be what they wanted was their own naïve fault. they didn't know the consequences 200years later. so i think it comes down to personal decisions.
by Carlus Harris (harris4794 [at] aol.com)
Our government does not work because those of us blessed with the ability to cast our vote do not. When we take into consideration the miserably low number of eligible voters that take advantage of this right, it is no wonder that the few who realize the power of the vote run this country. Citizens have a RESPONSIBILITY to educate themselves, not on sound-bites and empty political promises, but politicians' voting records and corporate backing, in order to cast an informed vote reflecting the conscience of a thinking person. We must no longer allow ourselves to be divided and conquered by issues designed to separate us along racial, ethnic and geographic lines. We must abandon the old bromide of that rugged individual who thinks of nothing but self-interest and become enlightened enough to realize that anyone hungry is everyone hungry; that anyone deprived and uneducated represents the sum total of who we are. Corporations have taken over because we've put the stamp of approval on runaway greed. We should take this opportunity to become a real nation, indivisible by the unchecked hubrus of the wealthy few.
by Barbara (aijahlon12 [at] aol.com)
They don't want true and real News from legitimate people. They want fairy tales and lies to be fed to the general public inorder to control public opinion. So, they band those who are not controlled by mainstream Media.
by Danny W Thomas
I think maybe the people at the UN have a little to much going on there these days to seriously consider inviting in rebellious kids to run amuck.
When you grow up and get serious journalistic careers, try again. You may not want to wear your blinders though. Hard to hear an answer to a question when when your focused on the funny shoes the answerer is wearing.
Suck it up kids. Sometimes maturity comes with age despite your efforts to fight the evolution of wisdom.
by hmm
It looks to me like this article is saying that these folks have 30 years of experience in journalism. I don't know many "kids" who have 30 years of reporting experience, do you Danny? Or did you just not read the article, instead preferring to spout off bullshit?
by DWT
Its a great sounding assertion, "30 years of experience". Ive got 30+ years of experience playing baseball, but I couldnt see a pro-pitched ball, much less hit it. Ive got 20+ years experience driving a car but Nascar wouldnt let me drive around the track once. A lot of shit you guys claim sounds cool for a few minutes. Till I realise it was constructed to sound cool and actually is heartless mindless banter.
This SF Indymedia site has a journalistic value slightly less significant than The National Enquirer. Everything you guys see and hear and are told immediately goes into a psychotic paranoid hallucinatory strainer. "Car hits child, because of vicious government roads". "Man catches 12 lb. fish, boat sinks, government coverup, fish is secret govt operative".
You guys dont need into the UN to write stories about happenings there. All you guys need is your conspiracy strainer and a printer. Your news isnt news, its technicolor puke from last nights binge.
by haha
Danny, you can barely form sentences. You never seem to read the comments you reply to. You are an admitted racist, nationalist supporter of terrorists. Who the fuck cares what you think?
by *.*
that's right, I just skip what DWT says, since it doesn't make any sense, and read the alternating responses -- a LITLE less time is wasted that way.
by Danny W Thomas
Ive got at best a 9th grade education guys. Give me a break. I even failed 7th grade. Capped off my public education getting expelled from all public schools in my county. Never went back. I'm a dumb ass , overlook me. And the one million three hundred thirty four thousand college educated fierce brave men and women of the all volunteer US Military I fully support.
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