By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS UN, March 25 -- At first the big media gang which runs the UN Correspondents Association specialized in secret complaints, but at least in their own names.
In 2013 with Pamela Falk of CBS in charge of UNCA, now full anonymity is used. Anonymous flyers, fake social media accounts, and most recently photos taken during the UN's March 18 raid of Inner City Press passed to BuzzFeed by an anonymous, UNCA-defending “Concerned UN Reporter.” It's a new low.
How can journalists press diplomats and UN officials to speak on the record if they won't?
Back in 2012, Louis Charbonneau of Reuters wrote to the UN's Stephane Dujarric to claim that an entirely verbal interchange with Inner City Press was the worst thing he'd been though in 20 years of journalism.
Some twenty years, then.
Voice of America's Steve Redisch, lobbied by VOA's UN correspondent Margaret Besheer, wrote to Dujarric on June 20, 2012 to ask that Inner City Press' accreditation be “reviewed.”
Neither thought that Inner City Press would ever learn of much less see and publish the complaints, since the UN has no due process rules for journalists. But again, at least these complaints were not anonymous.
In 2013 since UNCA has been taken over by Pamela Falk of CBS News, UNCA has gone ever lower. First there were flyers counterfeiting those of the new Free UN Coalition for Access, and defacing of FUNCA flyers with insults.
Then UNCA “leaders” started at least four anonymous social media accounts to try to undermine Inner City Press and FUNCA, mocking an alleged victim of sexual harassment then telling a country's mission to the UN that Inner City Press wanted a small donation to investigate the allegations.
Now we have the worst: the UN raiding Inner City Press' office on March 18 without notice or consent, searching papers and taking photographs -- and given them to UNCA “leaders.”
Why wouldn't these UNCA “leaders” complaint publicly, in their own names, if they were so concerned? But they sent the photos from the UN to BuzzFeed under a false name, “Concerned UN Reporter,” and gave quotes on that basis to.
This is called cowardice. And now, the UN Cowardice Association.
It is also how reporting at and around the UN has been undermined. Again: how can journalists press diplomats and UN officials to speak on the record if they won't?
In the newest of new lows, Falk on March 23 send Inner City Press a legal threat about even asking the question of how the photos of the UN's raid got to BuzzFeed. More on that soon. Watch this site.
