Saturday, December 8, 2012

Even Voice of America Admitted to Congress That Its Anti-Press Request Aided by Reuters and AFP Was Inappropriate, But Never Withdrew It


By Matthew Russell Lee
 
UNITED NATIONS, December 7 -- The UN Correspondents Association's executive committee including Reuters and Agence France Presse helped Voice of America to file a June 20, 2012 request with the UN to "review" the accreditation status of Inner City Press -- and then never deigned to explain themselves.

  But documents now obtained obtained from Voice of America's Broadcast Board of Governors under Freedom of Information Act requests and appeals show that even VOA's overseer Richard Lobo, as well as review requester Steve Redisch, had to admit in writing their anti-Press moves were "not appropriate."

   Still the UNCA executive committee persisted, leaving posted on its glassed in bulletin board its initial letter of denunciation, going secret with their meetings with the UN, and setting up scam elections. As reported yesterday, this illegitimacy must end, and the new beta FUNCA -- the Free UN Coalition for Access -- aims to do so.

    On August 8 and earlier on December 6, we reported on some of the documents obtained from BBG via FOIA requests and appeals; now we report more.

  Once BBG was asked by Congress to explain its request to disaccredit an investigative journalist, Steve Redisch and David Ensor scoured their files for support.


  The reference was to the stealth complaint filed by Reuters bureau chief Louis Charbonneau, based on Inner City Press telling him, "you disgust me."

  Later, Charbonneau on behalf of Reuters said he was willing to have submitted a letter to get Inner City Press disaccredited.  This came after Inner City Press wrote a letter of complaint and question, still not responded to after six months, to Reuters' top executives Stephen J. Adler, Editor in Chief; Greg McCune, Ethics & Training; Walden Siew, Top News Editor; and Paul Ingrassia, Deputy Editor in Chief.

   Besheer wrote to her Voice of America bosses that they should not respond to Inner City Press petitioning for redress of grievance because these Reuters executives, as well as Bloomberg's Matthew Winkler, had adopted a policy of non response - which has continued even after Voice of America told Congress the anti-Press drive it worked on with Reuters, Bloomberg, AFP and others was "not appropriate."

  After VOA's June 20 letter to the UN was leaked, Charbonneau and outgoing UNCA president Giampaolo Pioli came to ask Inner City Press to withdraw its Freedom of Information Act request.

   Moments later, the UN official to whom Redish's request was directed met Inner City Press and gave a six month extension of accreditation, along with a written (and separate and different oral) warning.

  The written warning was about Inner City Press signing in as a guest the Nobel Peace Prize winner Tawakkol Karman, who then spoke on UN TV at the stakeout.

   But later, to justify themselves, Ensor and Redisch crowed within BBG that Inner City Press was given a warning - as if it had anything to do with the issues they based their anti-Press filing on.

   Richard Lobo, the head of BBG, ended up having to call the request by Redisch "not appropriate" in an email to the BBG board, one of whose members Dana Perino wrote, "folks - I believe this issue needs addressed in a more robust way."

   BBG and VOA never issued any apology to Inner City Press, or moved to withdraw their "inappropriate" request. Nor did the UNCA executive committee say anything, or explain the documents when Inner City Press sent them three in October.

  Now, we have learned, some on this UNCA Executive Committee seek to have another closed-door, otherwise secret meeting with UN officials on December 10. FUNCA has questioned and contested this. Watch this site.
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