By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, May 4 -- When people are being slaughtered, not in Syria but Sri Lanka, or when hundreds of UN staff are protesting Secretary General Ban Ki-moon who said little during the latter bloodbath on the beach, how do the Western wire services at the UN spend their time?
On May 1, 2013 while a UN staff protest filled the traffic circle right outside their offices, Inner City Press video here, the scribes of Reuters, Agence France Presse, Bloombergand Voice of America did not cover it.
It was the bureau chiefs of these Western wires who through the UN Correspondents Association have tried to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN, saying only they can say what journalism is.
But on and around May 1, while Inner City Press covered not only the UN staff protest but also asked US Ambassador Susan Rice exclusively about an attack in Sudan, broke astory about the sale of an internship in the UN, and published Swiss proposals on the revisions to Qatar's draft resolution on Syria, this is what these wires were doing:
Margaret Besheer of Voice of America was tweeting about royals again, this time in Holland.
Louis Charbonneau was re-tweeting Reuters stories from all over, including on cannibalism.
UNCA President Pam Falk of CBS was promoting her appearances on a pro-UN show, Global Connections, in which she falsely claimed that UNCA is a trade association representing all correspondents of the UN, and for "World Press Freedom Day," click here for a (counter) video.
Tim Witcher of Agence France Presse was not tweet: not because he was breaking any stories, but because he is too low tech. (He has, however, filed a false complaint with UN Security in defense of UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous.)
This was in the correspondents' name. But their troll alter egos were going lower. They have created anonymous social media accounts of various types, and on May 1 they continued anti Press moves.
For example, apparently angry at the inclusion of Inner City Press in the Colombia Journalism Review, they characterized the author of that piece, Armin Rosen (now at the Atlantic) as a "right wing journalist." Really?
It has been suggested that the roots of these drab wire correspondents trolling is their very facelessness. But look at what they did, for example on May 1. That's why their faceless and/or angry.
On April 30, one of their anonymous accounts called Inner City Press pro-Assad for covering a presentation by a Russian journalist who'd been in Syria for eight months; on May 1, they joked that Inner City Press was starting an Arabic service.
Criticism is fine. But when large corporate media is so cowardly as to attack smaller investigative competitors anonymously, and falsely allege funding by terrorists in such a way as to trigger death threats, it is too much. And it must and will continue to be responded to, exposed.
So, still sticking to May Day, Inner City Press raised this UNCA and Reuters trolling to, who else, Reuters' social media editor Anthony De Rosa, here. And what was the response? Nothing. Just as editor Stephen J. Adler has done nothing. These corporations have let their UN bureaux run amuck. We'll have more on this. Watch this site.
