After UN's Herve Ladsous Spoonfeeds Half Answers of ICP's Questions to Another & DPI Stonewalls, UNCA Trolls in Defense - Anonymously

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 10 -- The degree of collusion, if not to say outright corruption, between UN officials and the Correspondents Association which ostensibly cover them was shown again today.

  After a week in which June 24 questions by Inner City Press for UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous about theUN Mine Action Service's Somalia boss David Bax sharing genetic information from bombings with US authorities werespoon-fed to another media, on Saturday Inner City Press published the first in a series on Ladsous' tenure at the UN, here.

  Inner City Press also on Saturday published an initial curtain-raiser for the UN's so-called "Stress Test" of its problem-plagued UN TV and MAMS audio - visual system,embedding complaints that have been raised, here.

  Hours later, a social media account associated with UNCA came to the defense of Ladsous and his lapdog -- anonymously, of course. Since Inner City Press quit UNCA, which through first vice president Louis Charbonneau of Reuters demonstrably spied for the UN, handing internal anti-Press UNCA documents to the UN's Stephane Dujarric, here, and co-founded the Free UN Coalition for Access in December 2012, this has been going on.

  UNCA "leaders'" anonymous social media trolling began in January 2013. Dujarric and above him within the UN Department of Public Information are aware of it; it was raised at a February 2013 meeting after which Dujarric issued a threat-letter to Inner City Press in defense of his source, Charbonneau, and UNCA's 2013 president Pamela Falk of CBS News. (That was a conflict of interest.)

  The anonymous trolling was raised to Reuters big wigs including Stephen J. Adler, and Reuters' former social media editor Anthony De Rosa, now with Circa.

  Inner City Press and FUNCA have no problems responding to critical questions online -- Inner City Press did so, regarding the Democratic Republic of the Congo, earlier on Saturday afternoon.

  But for big media from Reuters and CBS News for to be associated with ANONYMOUS trolling, is too much. UNCA, in this the UN Cowardice Association, already got DPI through Dujarric to try to threaten Inner City Press'accreditation with suspension or withdrawal for hanging a sign of the Free UN Coalition for Access on the door of its shared office, while UNCA now has five signs.

  UNCA is given a big room in the UN, S-310, which it locks and uses for faux UN briefings, with the "Chefs to the Chefs" and the (Saudi-supported) Syrian opposition, promoted only to those which pay it money. Inner City Press' question about that at the UN's noon briefing have still not been answered. This too, now, is a conflict of interest.

  For months, Inner City Press and FUNCA have made all of these critiques on the record, in their names. The UN Cowardice Association, Ban Ki-moon's exclusive media partner, continues to take another, lower road. We'll have more on and about this. Watch this site.

   

As Circa Misplaces ICC-Indictee Bashir of Sudan, Echo of Non-Action on Reuters Spying for UN

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, July 31 -- Circa, based in San Francisco, calls itself "news, re-imagined." In late May with some fanfare it hired Reuters then social media editor Anthony De Rosa as its editor in chief.

  At Inner City Press we are rooting for new media, new approaches. So when Circa reported today on George Clooney spying on Sudan and its International Criminal Court indicted president Omar al Bashir, we chimed in with the fact that Bashir met with the head of UN Peacekeeping, Herve Ladsous, only this month.

  Inner City Press previously questioned why Human Rights watch ignored this UN entanglement to only focus on Bashir's trip to an HIV / AIDS conference in Nigeria. HRW's Ken Roth called Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan a "coward" for not arresting Bashir, but said nothing of the UN's Ladsous meeting with him.

  Soon we learned that Circa has reported that Bashir had fled TO Nigeria, rather than the other way around. And Circa reached out to ask where Bashir was now. Well, back in Sudan (though he's headed to Iran on August 4 for Rouhani's inauguration.)

  The mistake would seem to indicate a dearth of foreign policy chops at Circa; fine. And they replied that they've now updated their story, wherever it is. But we can't help remembering: when De Rosa was at Reuters, ostensibly its bridge to the world of social media, he was told of problems.

  He was shown that Reuters UN bureau chief tried to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN. He was shown the connection between Reuters and anonymous social media trolling of Inner City Press. 

  The Reuters UN bureau chief, Lou Charbonneau, has beenshown to have essentially spied for the UN. Charbonneau gave the UN's top Media Accreditation official an internal anti-Press document of the UN Correspondents Association, three minutes after he promised that it would stay within UNCA.

  Story here, audio here, document here, saying "you didn't get this from me."

  Old media Reuters big wigs Stephen J. Adler, Greg McCune, Paul Ingrassia and Walden Siew were all contacted but did nothing.

   But DeRosa never did anything about this either, despite the "social media" in his title. Then one thought that when he left the hegemon, and went hipster at Circa, he might do something. But no, nothing, at least not so far. Some things, however, require action.

  It's fine for a start up social news company to not know, really, who the president of Sudan is, or where and when he traveled, or why. But where is this all going? How can double standards like on Ladsous be reported, given this? Watch this site.

   

At UN, Ban Ki-moon's Office Stonewalls on UN SC Media Access, EZTV Complaints: Follow the Money

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 28 -- Media access was again the topic at the UN's noon briefing on Tuesday, this time with four separate questioners on the topic. Last Wednesday, Thursday and Friday May 22-24 only Inner City Press asked, about the slated reduction in media workspace in front of the Security Council.

  On this topic, after a three day weekend to get a more credible answer, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's Deputy Spokesperson Eduardo Del Buey on May 28 would not Inner City Press even on when the amended Media Access Guidelines, shown to the new Free UN Coalition for Accesson May 20, will go into place. 

  He insisted that only the Department of Public Information can answer this. But it hasn't.

  The other question raised, Del Buey also referred to DPI albeit less defensively. He said that he would inform DPI of the questioners concern about "EZTV" not working. 

  Inner City Press for FUNCA echoed and supported this complaint but wonders: if Ban's Office will convey press corps positions about EZTV, why not about actual media access and workspace to cover the Security Council?

  Some have concluded that the goal behind trying to eliminate a media table in front of the Security Council, which existed prior to the renovation, and also during the renovation at the temporary Council in the basement, is to drive reporters back into their offices, to only cover what they are given.

  In this theory, it is in the UN's interest to have reporters relying on "Easy" UNTV. So why not fix it fast?

  A table, as has been shown to the incoming Security Council president for June, could easily fix between the steps down to the Security Council and the so-called Turkish Lounge. So FUNCA continues to press the issue.

  Anonymous social media accounts associated with the old UN Correspondents Association -- and with Reuters, it must be and has been said -- even over Memorial Day weekend mocked the push for media workspace by the Council, comparing it to a push for a "massage table," or saying that a table should only be for "real journalists," presumably like their anonymous selves.

  But then where are they, fighting for anything but television reception in their offices?

Footnotes: Reuters sent both of its UN reporters to Tuesday's noon briefing, as if to show just how important this Easy TV issue is to the wire service (which today lost its social media editor Anthony De Rosa to Circa; more on that anon.) 

  Reuters apparently doesn't push for media workspace in front of the Security Council because they benefit from less access: they get reports leaked by Western members of the Council.

  Continued and unreduced media access to all 15 Council members serves and helps smaller investigative media, not them. And since their compensation is based on exclusives, even if inaccurately labeled and claimed, there appears to be an economic interest in reduced media access for others. 

  Who are they, then, to anonymously and false charge smaller media of being funded by terrorists? It is, in a word,disgusting. Watch this site.