By Matthew Russell Lee, Social Media Watch
UNITED NATIONS, April 12 -- In a sign of how intertwined the UN and its UN Censorship Alliance have become, even in the unseemly world of corporate trolling, the anonymous social media account linked this week to Reuters has taken today to re-tweeting UN official Stephane Dujarric.
The point, if there is one, is to cite Dujarric's quoted definition of journalist as disqualifying Inner City Press as a journalist.
Notably, it was to Dujarric that Voice of America directed its June 20, 2012 request to dis-accredit Inner City Press, and to whom Louis Charbonneau of Reuters directed an earlier request.
US Freedom of Information Act requests on Voice of America and its affiliates, ongoing, continue to reveal a lot.
Now we can begin reporting that, troublingly, Dujarric took to directing and fielding such requests on a separate, non-UN e-mail account. Can this be consistent with the rules of the UN Department of Public Information?
Oh we forgot - there ARE no rules, at Dujarric's insistence in July 2012 to the New York Civil Liberties Union.
As is relevant here, on February 22, 2013 Dujarric was made of aware of the counterfeit social media accounts linked to the UN Correspondents Association.
At the meeting, UNCA president Pamela Falk of CBS News claimed loudly that she had no idea who was behind the accounts.
Dujarric, of course, has had at least since then to figure this out.
But similar to his inaction or too-silent work after UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous had his spokesman try to avoid Inner City Press' questions on the Minova rapes by seize the UN Television microphone, which Dujarric is in charge of, nothing as been done. To put it diplomatically.
Tellingly, Dujarric response was to criticize Inner City Press for reporting on the February 22 meeting, and on Falk's denials.
The links, however, are eminently clear: photos for the account were taken by the UN Security Council stakeout, where only those with accreditation and ground passes can go; the posts openly defend UNCA.
While Inner City Press is increasingly critical of UN correspondents who try to abuse their or their media organization's power by trying to get competitors thrown out, what Inner City Press does is in its name. It's UNCA and its affiliates which troll anonymously, like corporate cowards.
If necessary, we will now report that the account as issue follows nearly all UNCA Executive Committee members, no matter how few other followers they have, from Sylviane Zehil of L'Orient le Jour (700 tweets, 104 followers) through Tim Witcher of AFP (139 followers), and Falk and yes, Michelle “The Troll” Nichols. There are more.
The irony is that today's UNCA trolls' re-tweet of Dujarric is from a speech by the founder of Mediapart. Back in February, Inner City Press pointed out how the pro-power attacked on Mediapart by AFP and Reuters were similar to the two wire service's servile approach to coverage of the UN, for example UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous.
What responsibility do Dujarric and the UN have in all this? Watch this site.
