ACANU ..... 70 years of reporting the world from the UN in Geneva
ACANU and its members have played a vital role in covering some of the most important and memorable events at the UN and other international organisations based in Geneva over the past seven decades.
ACANU members have been at the forefront of covering such monumental events as Che Guevara’s address before the UN Conference on Trade and development in 1964, the Geneva Summit between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985, as well as peace conferences to end the Iran-Iraq war, the Yugoslavia conflict, Iraq's occupation of Kuwait, and more recently the peace talks for Syria, Cyprus, Yemen and Libya, not to mention the Iran nuclear talks.
Our members have also been there as witnesses to visits by such personalities as Che Guevara, three popes, Nelson Mandela, Yassir Arafat, Bill Clinton and Aung San Suu Kyi.
Coverage by ACANU members, who hail from a wide range of different countries, has served to inform people around the world about the important events taking place in Geneva, and has also helped put those events in context.
Our Anniversary comes at a time when the media, as well as the international institutions they cover in Geneva and the entire multilateral system, increasingly find themselves under attack, and we hope it will help highlight some of the many valuable contributions both have made.
The ACANU Committee
ACANU members have been at the forefront of covering such monumental events as Che Guevara’s address before the UN Conference on Trade and development in 1964, the Geneva Summit between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985, as well as peace conferences to end the Iran-Iraq war, the Yugoslavia conflict, Iraq's occupation of Kuwait, and more recently the peace talks for Syria, Cyprus, Yemen and Libya, not to mention the Iran nuclear talks.
Our members have also been there as witnesses to visits by such personalities as Che Guevara, three popes, Nelson Mandela, Yassir Arafat, Bill Clinton and Aung San Suu Kyi.
Coverage by ACANU members, who hail from a wide range of different countries, has served to inform people around the world about the important events taking place in Geneva, and has also helped put those events in context.
Our Anniversary comes at a time when the media, as well as the international institutions they cover in Geneva and the entire multilateral system, increasingly find themselves under attack, and we hope it will help highlight some of the many valuable contributions both have made.
The ACANU Committee
THE BEGINNINGACANU was founded in 1949, in the ashes of the International Association of Journalists Accredited to the League of Nations, which had been created in 1921, but which effectively ceased its activities when the League was dissolved and the United Nations came into being. An Action Committee was set up in the summer of 1948 to "reorganise our Association on a new basis," and notably to secure accreditation with the UN in Geneva, according to circular dated on August 30 that year and addressed to members of the old association. A meeting on February 2, 1949, attended by 15 correspondents, including from Agence Telegraphique Suisse, Daily Telegraph, Reuter, Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, New York Times, and the Central China News Agency, decided to form the "Geneva Association of United Nations Correspondents", and entrusted a five-member drafting committee with the task of considering statues. These were presented and adopted on February 9, at the Foundation Assembly of the Geneva Association of United Nations Correspondents. The executive committee was created, with Victor Lusinchi of the Exchange Telegraph elected ACANU's first president. The association counted 33 founding members. The admissions fee was set at 20 CHF, and the annual subscription was set at the same amount. The association held its first luncheon just a month later, on March 10 1949, in honour of UN Secretary-General, Trygve Lie, who congratulated the members on ACANU's formation. “Our Association is like a ship … The ship must always sail on, as surely as before, even when all who first embarked are gone.” – John Myers of the Daily Telegraph and ACANU President (1964-66). |
THE MISSIONThe Committee quickly made its presence felt among officials of the UN and the specialised agencies, including demanding changes in the way press communiques were issued. One of ACANU's main demands was that the association and its members should be viewed on an equal footing with the parallel correspondent's organisation and membership in New York. The association has from the beginning enjoyed significant support from the UN Information Service in Geneva, and the two have worked in often close cooperation to secure proper working conditions for journalists and access to information. UNIS and the UN agencies go to great lengths to accommodate the large press corps in Geneva with appropriate facilities, and frequently welcome proposals from ACANU on how to better structure briefings and communications to the press. UN member states, and in particular Switzerland as the host country, have meanwhile over the years provided generous in support to projects aimed at improving journalists’ working conditions, including the last significant upgrade to Press Room 1, not to mention their much appreciated backing of ACANU’s social events, including its hugely popular End-of-the-Year Party each December. While ACANU’s relationship with the UN, Switzerland and the member states has largely been positive and constructive, the association has over the years also played an important role in coming to the defense of members and other journalists whose professional interests were threatened. The ACANU Committee was first called upon in such a case less than three months after the association was created, calling an emergency meeting on April 29, 1949 to discuss the French government's refusal to grant a visa to a Czechoslovakian journalist to allow him to cover a conference of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in Annecy. |
COLD WAR TENSIONSThrough the 1950s, ACANU was confronted with several serious cases related to Cold War tensions. At the end of 1956, for instance, the committee was confronted with what the president at the time, John Talbot of Reuter, described as "a most unpleasant affair": A member had become involved in espionage, and subsequently published an article on the subject, mentioning some other correspondents. He received "the most severe reprimand" from the committee, which was circulated to all members and released to the press. A year later, the committee strongly protested the arrest of one of its committee members, Michael Goldsmith of the Associated Press, by Swiss authorities because he refused to divulge the sources of a report he had written on the Dubois-Ulrich espionage affair. He was held in prison in Bern for 24 hours. The committee termed this "a grave attack on the principle of freedom of information." And in 1959, the Committee intervened with Swiss authorities on behalf of member Frieda Kantorowicz of the Allgemeiner Deutscher Nachrichtendienst, after her residence permit was not renewed, in what was interpreted as reprisal for the treatment of certain Swiss nationals in East Germany. Eventually, her appeal against this decision was upheld. “The importance of the scope of the work done by this corps increases with every year that passes. Recent months have seen Geneva as the site of so many important world gatherings where discussions and decisions could affect the future of men’s lives. The alert reporting and interpreting of these events … are making a vital contribution to the better understanding by people everywhere of the problems facing our world.” – Dag Hammarskjold, Secretary-General of the United Nations in a letter to ACANU dated January 31, 1959. |
PROTECTING PRESS FREEDOM AND JOURNALIST SAFETYACANU has continued to lobby on behalf of members who run into problems with UN officials and security, with Swiss local and national authorities, as well as with authorities in other countries. In 1980, it lobbied on behalf of journalists imprisoned in Bolivia following a military coup, and received a note of gratitude from one journalist after his release for working for his freedom. And it has repeatedly raised concerns about the denial of access to the UN faced by Taiwanese journalists, a situation that persists. The association has also frequently publicly voiced its concern and criticism during broadcasted UN briefings and elsewhere in reaction to news of violence, arrests and killings of journalists around the world. In recent months, the committee has for instance repeatedly criticised publicly the seven-year prison sentence handed to Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo for simply reporting the facts about a massacre of Rohingya Muslims in a village in Myanmar. Observers have noted a significant recent rise in physical attacks and negative rhetoric targeting media workers, and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has warned that violence against journalists around the globe has reached “unprecedented levels”. Last year, 80 journalists and other media workers were killed worldwide in connection with their work. While journalists based in Geneva enjoy relative safety, they have been shaken by the increased hostility towards their profession. In the wake of the shocking and brutal murder of Saudi journalist and Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last October, ACANU created an alarm system for our members who plan to travel to countries where they fear their safety might be at risk. The system allows them to provide details of their travel plans in advance of departure. If they do not make contact at scheduled times, the Committee will strive to locate them, and if that fails, raise the alarm. |
ACCESS TO INFORMATIONOver the years, the association has repeatedly asked that UN agencies deliver information in a fair and timely manner, providing free and equal access to all accredited correspondents, without discrimination on the basis of politics, nationality or the size or clout of the media outlet they represent. Upon invitation from ACANU, every UN Secretary-General over the past 70 years has met with the press corps in Geneva, for news briefings but also more informal settings, over dinners and lunches. ACANU’s archives are full of letters of congratulations and recognition from all of those who have served as head of the UN. The ACANU Committee frequently organises briefings with top UN officials and other important international personalities who come through Geneva, providing members with privileged access to information that frequently sets the day’s news agenda. It has also in recent years created a visual media pool system to cover events where the United Nations or countries are reluctant to allow in the entire press corps, and consistently requests at least pool access by professional journalists to all events where UNTV are permitted in. As professional Journalists representing the various medias, your interpretation and reporting of theses events provides the link for an informed public opinion and reporting of these events provides the link for informed public opinion so important for their success. |
"A critical, independent and investigative press is the lifeblood of any democracy." – Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first democratically elected president WORKING CONDITIONSACANU has continuously worked to ensure adequate workspace for journalists based in the Palais, for space for broadcasters to work, and adapted briefing areas. In the past, the Committee also helped journalists resolve technical frustrations, including a lengthy correspondence with the Swiss postal and telephone authority in Geneva in 1965 to help a journalist obtain a telephone line in his apartment, making demands for a seat in the UN telephone booth, and keeping a “press offices inventory of typewriters”. The Committee cooperated closely with UNIS to ensure adequate workspaces were made available in the 1966 Palais des Nations renovation plans. It remains responsible for allocating press boxes in the two press rooms, and it continues to keep a close eye on shifts in allocated workspaces and working conditions. This is especially true now, with the Strategic Heritage Plan (SHP) renovation of the UN's European headquarters approaching. The Committee routinely meets with UNIS, and with the architects and planners behind the renovation to discuss the temporary accommodations during the work. It is also part of the discussion on the final office allocations, the new briefing room setup and broadcast facilities, among other things, and is working to help ensure as smooth a transition as possible for its members as the UN in Geneva and its communications apparatus takes a step towards the future. |
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