By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, November 29 -- Amid the UN's humanitarian work there is ugliness: bringing cholera to Haiti then refusing to be accountable, turning a blind eye during the slaughter of 40,000 in Sri Lanka, allowing impunity for mass rape in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and, so far, by its own peacekeepers in Mali.
Inside the UN's own headquarters, even among those ostensibly covering the UN, there is ugliness too. For example: insiders among the UN Correspondents Association's executive committee, past, present and future, have not only tried to get other journalists thrown out of the UN -- in 2013 under the leadership of Pamela Falk of CBS, they began anonymous trolling social media campaigns, UNacccountable.
And on November 27, 2013, the day before US Thanksgiving, they've been at it again.
It began in late 2011, when UNCA's executive committee or whose who control it decided to demand the deletion from the Internet of an on-the-record factual article about financial background relevant to UNCA's screening of a Sri Lanka government film denying war crimes, they became the UN's Censorship Alliance.
When a 2013 UNCA executive committee member filed a stealth complaint with UN Security leading with how Inner City Press posed a question to UN Under Secretary General for Peacekeeping Herve Ladsous, who refused Press questions (video here, UK coverage here), the UN's Censorship Alliance slipped lower, under 2013 president Pamela Falk of CBS.
As reported by Media Bistro, two UNCA board members began false Inner City Press twitter accounts. Exposed, neither of these two are listed as running -- usually there is no competition -- for re-election in 2014. But one, Louis Charbonneau, is simply to be replaced by another Reuters scribe, endorsed by Falk; the other Tim Witcher, the earliest Ladsous fan, has become an endorser too.
On November 27, 2013, the UNCA trolls were at it again, anonymously, online. Those who partner with UNCA and prop it up, informed, have not stopped it, nor has UNCA's "leadership." When what began as a press organization descends into trying to censor or get other journalists thrown out, it calls out for scrutiny and coverage. This Press coverage is on the record, just as Inner City Press also covers the UN Staff Union, its budget committees, "Ethics" Office and other arcania. Unlike the UNCA counterfeiters and trolls, it is on the record, by name, for attribution.
Inner City Press for now makes a single, sample observation, publicly: the 2013 and one-party system style presumptive 2014 UNCA chief Pamela Falk, who demands first questions at the UN on topics she does not write or broadcast on, cravenly directed alongside her UNCA's troll campaign a red white and blue American photo to US Ambassador Power. That is called: being a sycophant to P/power.
And there are others, trying to get on the inside with this group of trolls and censors? Watch this site.
