By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, September 11 -- Two days after UN insiders Louis Charbonneau of Reuters and Tim Witcher of Agence France Presse were called out as anonymous trolls in MediaBistro, they still had no response, at least in their own names.
Rather, a series of anonymous commenters weighed in, trying to convince the MediaBistro author that at least one of their two imposter @InnerCityPress accounts had always been labeled "Satire" and "Not."
Neither is true, as the reporter himself soon realized. Still rather than actually responding and explaining for example why Charbonneau gave an internal document of the UN Correspondents Association to UN accreditation official Stephane Dujarric three minutes after promising not to (story here, audio here, document here), they just continued to troll. But they left finger prints.
For example one of the names adopted for these comments is "David Spring" -- the same one used in March to argue that Inner City Press once "made" another journalist cry. This is exactly an argument (and person) used by Charbonneau, then parroted by ventriloquist David Spring.
Lou "Mean Girl" Charbonneau, the handing goes both ways?
Since this troll's head is again raised, it must again be pointed out: an Italian reporter at the UN took so much offense to Inner City Press quoting another correspondent about the unfairness of so many Italian media getting offices, and all near each other as “Italian row,” that she cried.
Inner City Press apologized but seriously, the UN's unfairness in giving out office space has had to be raised in 2013 as well. Three separate affiliates of the US State Department, including Voice of America, each have separate offices, while other countries' wire services were asked to share space.
Now in September 2013 it remains the fact that Russia's ITAR TASS is confined to a windowless photocopy room, while others have their own offices facing the river, from which to troll and write inaccurate stories. Who's crying now? Watch this site.
