By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, May 5 -- UN media accreditation official Stephane Dujarric on June 21, 2012 thanked Voice of America for having asked him to "review" the accreditation of Inner City Press. This document was obtained from VOA under the US Freedom of Information Act.
Once the request, which VOA said was supported by Reuters and Agence France Presse, Bloomberg News and UN Correspondents Association Executive Committee members, was exposed Dujarric reverted to telling Inner City Press how to cover Ban Ki-moon and his Peacekeeping chief, Herve Ladsous (video).
Now, past midnight on May 4-5, 2013 one of the anonymous social media accounts associated with UNCA has directed itself at Dujarric asking why Inner City Press is accredited to cover the UN.
This is an account which began with a photograph taken behind the UN Security Council stakeout. It has launched defenses of, yes, Reuters, Voice of America and CBS News,base of UNCA President Pamela Falk (video).
So what will Dujarric do? Last month he told Inner City Press to contact him "urgently" about a single tweet mentioning Ladsous, his new Police Adviser, and World War II -- through which France "won" its Security Council veto, and thus the power to give UN Peacekeeping to Ladsous, the fourth Frenchman in a row in the position.
Dujarric said the tweet "crossed all bounds," and said he was just "giving Inner City Press a chance."
But what of social media messages openly directed to Dujarric asking him to throw Inner City Press out, after having falsely alleged Inner City Press is funded by terrorists, which gave rise to death threats?
What do Dujarric and Ban Ki-moon's UN do about this?
There are reasons, even beyond his defense to the Free UN Coalition for Access and the NYCLU of a continuing lack of due process rules for journalists at the UN, that these UNCA trolls think they'll get a sympathetic ear and action from Dujarric. Watch this site.
