Why Pick And Choose, UNMIL, UNDP?

 

Editorial

Forum
Monrovia, Liberia

Distributed by

The Perspective
Atlanta, Georgia

Posted December 31, 2005

 

OUR ATTENTION HAS been drawn to the selective tendency of the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) and its collaborating partner-the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) when it comes to serving the media with public information dissemination.

AS WE OBSERVE, both entities are seemingly generous is releasing certain public information to every media entity only when it is cost free.

SPECIFICALLY, PRESS RELEASES, statements and conferences that bear no cost to benefit the media financial wise are most often available to all media houses to the extent that public information officers of UNMIL and UNDP would visit each media entity for an elaborate coverage of their activities.

HOWEVER, TO OUR alter dismay and disdain, we’ve come to realize with misgiving that these United Nations Organizations are deliberately selective in advertising in the same media houses they chase to disseminate their activities.

WE BELIEVE THAT this practice is discriminative and must not go unnoticed because selecting certain newspapers or radio stations for advertisement purposes while others are left in the cold is a complete disservice to the growth of the very media which UNMIL and UNDP want to see improved.

LET OUR CONCERN hereof be construed as a reminder to the UN peacekeeping unit as well as the UNDP that no matter what their policies could be regarding advertising in the media, we believe that isolating some media houses is an injustice to those affected.

We hope that our concern expressed in this public manner cannot and will not fall on deaf ears as we all strive to enhance the collective efforts in the reconstruction process of postwar Liberia.

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