By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, September 11 -- It's a dynamic that often comes through the UN: after a year of sneak attacks for which no one took credit, the anonymous attacker steps forward to present himself as the victim.
So it is with the UN Correspondents Association's Executive Committee under 2013 president Pamela Falk of CBS and seemingly permanent first vice president Louis Charbonneau of Reuters, known for spoon-fed Western pass-through.
But does Charbonneau serve his masters by being, as one UN analyst not in the press corps put it, such a Mean Girl?
Both Charbonneau and Falk were informed, at latest on February 22, of obviously and openly UNCA linked anonymous social media accounts which sought to trash Inner City Press and the new Free UN Coalition for Access -- not for any attribution, of course.
But they did nothing. Charbonneau at that on the record meeting told Inner City Press, the fundamental problem is your website. Audio here. But InnerCityPress.com is on the record. The UNCA trolls are not.
The UNCA-linked accounts proliferated. One was noticed by a pro UN analyst who asked, "why are they tweeting like a 'mean girl'? No pic, either. Weird." But it continued.
Last week, right after InnerCityPress.com published an on the record article noting that for US Ambassador Samantha Power's stakeout the three questioners selected were all UNCA Executive Committee members who had sponsored the faux "UN briefing" in late July by Saudi sponsored Syria rebel leader Ahmad al Jarba, the UNCA (Executive Committee) trolls went lower still.
They started one then two counterfeit Twitter accounts with Inner City Press' name only slightly varied, and started following every single follower of @FUNCA_info then@InnerCityPress.
Inner City Press wrote about it, but it continued. MediaBistro's FishBowlNY wanted to write about it, and did, after seeing the documents showing Voice of America saying Reuters under Charbonneau and AFP under Tim Witchersupported VOA's attempt to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN. There are yet more damning documents; the Freedom of Information Act process at VOA's Broadcast Board of Governors continues.
The response? An anonymous comment to MediaBistro purported to speak for all UN journalists (as UNCA always purports to do), calling Inner City Press "pro Syria, pro Rwanda, anti French."
This last, "anti-French," is very telling.
Then, the belated addition to the smaller of the two accounts of the word "satire" and "(Not)." The other, pitched at diplomats, does not contain these words.
And then... yet more anonymous tweeting, continuing. Or as the pro UN analyst called it, "Mean Girl" tweeting. And who is responsible? Louis "Mean Girl" Charbonneau?
Charbonneau did, as documented, SPY for the UN, giving UN accreditation official Stephane Dujarric an anti-Press internal UNCA document three minutes after promising he would not. Story here, audio here, document here.
UNbelievably,or oh-so-UN, neither Dujarric or his DPI, nor Charbonneau, Reuters or Falk's UNCA have ever explained this. So "Mean Girls" is the least of it. Pass-through for war continues. Watch this site.
