By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, May 4 -- While World Press Freedom Day 2013 was marked or marred by some corporate hypocrisy on each continent, the split between Reuters bragging about investigative journalism in Jordan while its anonymous trolls attack just that at the UN must be noted.
On May 1 -- when Reuters at the UN entirely ignored a protest march at the UN against Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's "forced relocations," click here for Inner City Press coverage -- the Thomson Reuters Foundation via its Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe covered its own "launch of a one-year project that aims to significantly improve investigative reporting in Jordan."
Partnering as it does the UN with the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Reuters bragged that under Jo Weir, "the workshops will be taught by senior Thomson Reuters Foundation consultants."
But what will they consult in? At the UN, Reuters bureau chief Louis Charbonneau has filed multiple stealth complaints trying to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN. And emails here and here, audio here and here.
The reporter Charbonneau supervises or "teaches," Michelle Nichols, is associated with an anonymous social media account which even on this Saturday, albeit at 1:13 am, falsely alleged that Inner City Press is funded by the defunct Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka.
When Charbonneau led a United Nations Correspondents Association drive to expel Inner City Press in 2012 and was shown that this false funding allegation led to death threats, he cynically said "call NYPD," the New York Police Department, and continued the campaign.
Reuters big wigs including editor Stephen J. Adler were contacted, but did nothing. This year they have been shown that the troll social media account stopped for exactly the ten days Reuters correspondent Michelle Nichols went home to Australia, then re-started the day she returned.
Reuters has been informed that Charbonneau tried to encourage the UN to throw Inner City Press out by saying he they didn't, he might leave the UN. Given the role he plays, as pass through, this carried some weight.
But Stephen J. Adler, surely a World Press Freedom Day proponent himself, did nothing; nor did his designated social media editor, nor now his recently acquired mascot columnist. This is Reuters. There's more, but that's it for now. Watch this site.
