By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, May 4 -- What kind of "correspondents' association" devotes itself to trying to get an investigative news web site thrown out, then shifts to anonymous social media trolling falsely accusing the web site of terrorist funding?
One at the United Nations -- that is, the UN Correspondents Association, with which Secretary General Ban Ki-moon continues to associate, even on "World Press Freedom Day" this week. Video here, explained below.
Documents obtained by Inner City Press under the Freedom of Information Act show that UNCA officials met with the UN in 2012, asking for the expulsion of Inner City Press. The request was made in writing by Voice of America, which said it had the support of Reuters and Agence France Presse.
On February 22, 2013 at an on the record meeting involving the leadership of the UN Department of Public Information and UNCA President Pamela Falk, Inner City Press specifically raised, as it had a month before, the anonymous social media posts accusing funding by the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka, which posts have triggered death threats.
Falk sputtered, or rather screamed, that she didn't know who was behind the posts. But the account making Tamil Tiger false allegations posted photos from the Security Council stakeout, and stopped abruptly for ten days while Reuters correspondent Michelle Nichols went home to Australia.
This account revived today, again falsely alleging Tiger and other funding, and then after coverage defending taciturn UN official Herve Ladsous (who has spoon-fed Nichols and Reuters' Louis Charbonneau, as well as Voice of America's Margaret Besheer and AFP's Tim Witcher) and defending @CBS, where Falk works.
Falk has done nothing to stop or look into the false allegations of terrorist funding by her UNCA "leadership;" in fact, she ghoulishly took photographs when DPI conducted a non-consensual raid of Inner City Press' office on March 18, 2013.
Falk then issued a legal threat from her @CBSNews.com e-mail address, telling Inner City Press to "cease and desist" from even asking why she took photos of the raid.
Today, Falk has taken to promoting the video of her WPFD speech, as if to bolster UNCA's and her press freedom credentials despite the organization's attempt to get media thrown out of the UN and Falk's ghoulish photographing of the UN's raid on the office of this media.
Here now, not anonymous like the UNCA trolls but on record as Inner City Press and the Free UN Coalition for Access is video of the UN's May 2 "World Press Freedom Day" event. As captioned twice in the video, one minute in, to show the public versus real face of Falk, the audio switches from the blathering May 2 speech to the on the record statements Falk made in front of DPI on February 22, 2013. This is, we believe, the true face of UNCA. Video here.
Watch this site.
