By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, March 18 -- When the UN raided Inner City Press' office on Monday (video here), taking photographs was Pamela Falk of CBS. How and why did she get there? And how is this consistent with CBS' policies?
Falk agreed to become, with no opponent, the present of the UN Correspondents Association, either without knowing or caring that this organization spend most of its meetings in 2012 trying to get Inner City Press thrown out.
Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act from Voice of America, and published, prove this.
But since Falk became president of UN, and Inner City Press left the organization to co-found the Free UN Coalition for Access, UNCA has become even worse.
Under Falk's watch, the organization has defaced and torn down FUNCA flyers, and started at least four anonymous social media accounts to try to undermine Inner City Press and / or FUNCA, for example by falsely telling a country's mission that Inner City Press was collecting money to investigate the mission.
(The mission at issue immediately brought this to Inner City Press' attention; Reuters Louis Charbonneau, UNCA first vice president, was blamed.)
At a meeting the UN Department of Public Information invited Inner City Press to an on the record February 22, they let Falk scream “mugger” at Inner City Press and “you call yourself a journalist,” and to say that lawyers -- Falk is a lawyer, perhaps talk to herself -- tell her that it “might constitute a crime” for Inner City Press to submit inquiries about policies to big media companies like Reuters, AFP and yes, CBS. Some Falk audio here, and here, and here, andhere.
After that meeting, on March 16, Inner City Press instead of writing to CBS -- it might be a crimes, Falk said -- published an open letter to CBS, with three questions. It named the executives of Up To The Minute, the show for which Falk most reporters, albeit not for at least the past week.
There's been no response -- other than the UN's March 18 raid on Inner City Press' office, with Falk there taking photographs. So beyond the three CBS questions already publicly asked, we must add: is THIS consistent with CBS policy?
Readers have provided us with what might be the right names and CBS departments. A reader wrote:
“Falk reports to the CBS foreign desk not Up to the Minute... Jeff Fager is the president of CBS News....Leslie Moonves is President and co-CEO Sumner Redstone is Chairman and co-CEO...the Dept you want CBS standards and practices... also Falk's official title is CBS News foreign affairs consultant.....she is not a staff correspondent...one would think that she got approval from somebody in Fager's office before she ran for UNCA office, likely Pamela Mason, Exec VP, just retired.”
So did CBS sign off on Falk overseeing attempts to get smaller, more investigative media thrown out of the UN, and taking photographs of a raid on their office? We will keep asking. Watch this site.
