At UN, Sucking Up and Trying to Censor, CBS Pamela Falk Takes UNCA Lower, Then Just Uses It

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 10 -- For years the UN has used its creaky UN Correspondents Association to do some of its dirty work: to request that some reporters be relieved of their office space, to try to silence certain reporters.

   In 2012 it hit a new low, with UNCA first vice president Louis Charbonneau of Reuters leaking internal UNCA documents to the UN's Stephane Dujarric with the goal of getting Inner City Press thrown out of the UN. Click here for that.

  With that exposed, including through Inner City Press requests under the US Freedom of Information Act to Voice of America (subject to FOIA since it is a US government agency), the UN and its UN Censorship Alliance had to try a new tack.

  And so instead of an Italian journalist, a seemingly more active America was sought to accept the 2013 presidency of UNCA: Pamela Falk of CBS News. Until 2013, she was infrequently at the UN, often as a sort of pro-UN tour guide for students from Hunter College. But this was to be the capstone of her UN-covering career.

  But she did not reform UNCA, quite the opposite. Under her "leadership," UNCA Executive Committee members like Charbonneau and Tim Witcher of AFP tore down fliers of the new Free UN Coalition for Access. 

  Falk tried to re-assert the monopoly of UNCA, for example directly a former Reuters henchwoman to demand the first question from Bolivia's Evo Morales in February. But Morales said no, and a fiasco ensued.

  Soon Dujarric, to whom Charbonneau had leaked, convened a meeting between UNCA and FUNCA. Even Falk said that the meeting was on the record. But when Inner City Press reported on it, Dujarric sent Inner City Press a threat letter, trying to kill FUNCA off as an interlocutor.

  But as media access continue to decline, at the Security Council stakeout where UNCA pushed for a rule banning work space for reporters, to theGeneral Assembly with the media confined to booths with no tables and no interpretation, FUNCA continued its work.

  Under Falk, some on the UNCA Executive Committee and affiliated moved into anonymous social media trolling, against FUNCA and Inner City Press. Dujarric and those above him were aware of this but either did nothing, or nothing effective -- because it continued, even on August 10.

  Falk got intern "Press" passes, making a mockery of the rule that only journalists were allowed into the press briefing room and into the stakeout. She devoted the Focus Booth, which was supposed to be for working journalists to call UN peacekeeping missions into the field, to UNCA intern use.

While some might say Falk did this things to try to defend or rehabilitate UNCA, in the end Falk started using UNCA for her self, to promote inane suck-up stories about Western missions to the UN and the chefs who cook for them. It's a sad end, all around. Watch this site.

   

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.

   

On Syria, France Claims Jarba Recognized by "Vast Majority" of States at UN, Russia Disagrees, UNCA Scam

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, July 26 -- After UN Security Council members met informally with four Syrian opposition figures, France's Permanent Representative Gerard Araud emerged and declared that the vast majority of member states in the UN General Assembly view these four as the only legitimate representatives of the Syrian people.

  Inner City Press asked Araud what this was based on, since the proponents of the last UNGA resolution repeatedly said it was not a referendum on who to recognize at the UN.

  Araud replied, calling himself "scientific" and saying that "any any mathematical system 107 votes (of 193 member states) proved what he had said.

  Moments later, Inner City Press asked Russian Permanent Representative Vitaly Churkin about Araud's claim about the vast majority of states recognize this groups as the only legitimate representative of the Syrian people.

  Churkin said, he's such a great mathematician, then said that discussion was out of place, it was not the purpose the meeting to recognize anyone.

  After hearing the claim at the North Lawn stakeout, publicized and open to all UN accredited journalists, that the Syrian opposition has not set any pre-conditions for going to the Geneva Two talks, the oppositionists went to a pseudo UN briefing which was only publicized to those who pay money to the UN Correspondents Association, whose email to its dues paying members said:

UNCA will hold a press briefing with the delegation of the National Coalition of the Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces tomorrow, Friday, July 26th in the UNCA Meeting room S-310 soon after the informal UN Security Council Meeting.

The delegation will include:

Ahmad al-Jarba, President of the Syrian Coalition

Michel Kilo and Burhan Ghalioun, Syrian Coalition members and members of the Syrian Coalition Political Committee

Dr. Najib Ghadbian, Special Representative of the Syrian Coalition to the United Nations

  It is a choice, and a bias, to list Najib Ghadbian as the "Special Representative of the Syrian Coalition to the United Nations." 

  Several member states brought this up to Inner City Press (and one, to the new Free UN Coalition for Access); on behalf of both at Friday's noon briefing Inner City Press asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's deputy spokesperson Eduardo Del Buey if such a position exists, and why the UN gives a big space to UNCA to hold briefing such as this publicized only to those who pay money.

  Del Buey promised to look into it and provide an answer. Inner City Press asked that some answer be given before the dubious session by UNCA, led by Pamela Falk of CBS News. But none came. 

  Inner City Press filmed the outside of the meeting, and afterward one of the oppositionist being interviewed at length blocking the door to Inner City Press' shared office, with the Free UN Coalition for Access sign based on which the UN Department of Public Information on June 24 threatened to suspend or withdraw the accreditation of Inner City Press - based on an anti-free speech (and single party) rule it adopted with UNCA, its UN Censorship Alliance, as a formal party.

  Why would the UN give its -- the member states' -- space to a group that invites only some types of speakers, and does not publicize it to all UN accredited journalists? 

  And what does this birds of a feather connection say about al-Jarba et al? Why not just do it in the Saudi mission? Or have Saudi Arabia sponsor a real press conference, in the UN briefing room, publicized and comfortable to all UN accredited journalists? 

Inner City Press has shown that UNCA's first vice presidentLouis Charbonneau leaked to the UN's top accreditation official an ostensibly internal UNCA document three minutes after saying he would not. Story here, document here, audio here.

  Even after this was documented, UNCA took no action. This is a dubious organization.

  Charbonneau and current UNCA president Pamela Falk of CBS News made a variety of statements after, as an alternative to UNCA which tries to get the investigative press thrown out of the UN, the Free UN Coalition for Access was formed.  On the record audio here, and here (Falk); here andhere (Charbonneau).

  In full disclosure, Inner City Press first crossed swords with UNCA when its then president organized such a pseudo UN event for the government of Sri Lanka to deny war crimes charges. Click here.

  To prop UNCA up (while threatening to suspend or withdraw Inner City Press' accreditation unless it takes downeven a FUNCA sign from the door to it shared office), theUN gives UNCA an office, Press passes for their non-journalist interns (who take "focus booth" space denied to actual working journalists), and a big meeting room for events like the one with al Jarba.

Watch this site.

As EU Lets Syria Arms Embargo Expire, UN Silent Despite Austria's Threat to Pull Peacekeepers from Golan, Ladsous & Trolls

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 27 -- Before European Union foreign ministers met on May 27 and did not extend the EU arms embargo on Syria, Austrian officials repeatedly said if the embargo was lifted they would pull their over 300 troops out of the UN mission in the Golan.

  So what was the UN Secretariat's position, both as the (recently mis) manager of the UNDOF observer mission and as an organization ostensibly against arming and the arms trade?

  Typical of its increasing invisibility or cautious opportunism, the UN was nowhere to be seen on this. Not the head of UN Peacekeeping Herve Ladsous, whose interest should be the peacekeepers in the UNDOF mission but who has allowed them to be repeatedly kidnapped without even properly announcing it.

   Ladsous confined the most recent kidnapping to a "conversation" with friendly scribes. And where was Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on this?

On May 23, Inner City Press asked Ban's deputy spokesperson Eduardo Del Buey:

Inner City Press: About the Golan and UNDOF [United Nations Disengagement Observer Force]. There has been renewed statements by Austria that they would… would withdraw their 300-some peacekeepers if an arms embargo is modified to Syria and the rebels, and I wonder, does the UN, given its need for peacekeepers, does it have any view on that?

Deputy Spokesperson Del Buey: Well, number one, we have no information from the Austrians at all on any decision they may or may not have taken, so we are not going to comment any further on that.

  The Austrians' position had been publicly stated, and Ladsous as head of UN peacekeeping, the fourth Frenchman in a row to hold the post, is supposed to be in touch with the troop contributing countries. So how can it be, "no information from the Austrians at all"?

  And so on May 24, Inner City Press asked the UN's Del Buey:

Inner City Press: Austria, now not just the Defense Minister, now the Foreign Minister has said today that if the EU Foreign Ministers who meet on Monday in Brussels remove the arms embargo on Syria, there are 'serious problems with Austria remaining in the Golan Heights and UNDOF.' So, again, are you saying you haven’t gotten any letter from them? Since the UN is running the peacekeeping mission of UNDOF, is there anyone in the UN system that is trying to make any UN view known to the EU foreign ministers who will vote on this?

Deputy Spokesperson Del Buey: Matthew, we are constantly monitoring the situation in all of our missions around the world, but we do not address speculation; it is [speculative]. We are not going to speculate on what the Austrians may or may not do. To the moment, we have not received any indication from the Austrians; we have not received any communication from them on this, and that is where we stand.

  So the UN said nothing, and now the meeting has ended and the arms embargo was not extended. It will expire on June 1. If the Austrians leave, should the UN have spoken? 

Was the UN Secretariat of Ban Ki-moon reluctant to anger France and the UK, who wanted the embargo off? Did Ladsous despite his ostensible duties to UNDOF stay silent to serve the position of France, which he served for years and years? Watch this site.

Footnotes: Meanwhile as a sample of the UN coverage of the UN Correspondents Association "leadership," UNCA president Pamela Falk of CBSNews sent suck up tweets to the French and UK Missions to the UN calling the (non) decision in Brussels a victory for them.

  Earlier in the Memorial Day weekend she sent even more newsless tweets to the UK Mission, paparazzi photos of its Ambassador and that of the UAE, which owns Manchester City football club. (No questions about the UAE's record on gay rights, despite Robbie Rogers suggesting just that question in the New York Times.)

  Meanwhile UNCA trolls on whom Falk at a minimum has refused to act (audio here and here) sent bogus social media messages to the UK Mission in Geneva questioning how the investigative Press is funded. (They have tried to say dictators and terrorists, leading to death threats.) 

Answer: Not by high frequency stock traders a la Reutersand Bloomberg, nor 41% by the French government like AFP. But what have these wire services' UN bureaux and UNCA under Falk come to? Watch this site.

As UN's Censorship Alliance Lashes Out from Anonymity, Ban Ki-moon's UN Does Nothing

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 24 -- UN scribes from Reuters, Bloomberg News, Voice of America, Agence France Presse and others on the board of the UN Correspondents Association tried to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN in 2012.

   In 2013 they have started anonymous social media accounts to falsely accuse Inner City Press of being funded by terrorists.

  Inner City Press quit UNCA and co-founded the Free UN Coalition for Access. FUNCA presses the UN for more transparency, for example this week for access to report on the Security Council. FUNCA has also made the UN aware that its partners in UNCA are anonymous trolls.

  Most recently on May 23 Inner City Press showed UN official Stephane Dujarric that FUNCA flyers -- about reduction in press access to the Security Council -- were defaced by UNCA "leaders," right under a UN Security camera installed over the door to the office of Inner City Press and FUNCA. (Both have told the UN to take the camera down.)

Dujarric on May 23 wrote that, "someone reportedly defaced the fliers on your door. We will look into the issue in the morning."

  But nothing was heard from Dujarric by 4 pm on May 24. Inner City Press and FUNCA asked for an update. Dujarric replied at 5:01 pm, copying Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's three top spokespeople, "I have nothing to add to what I've already told you on record on all the issues you raise in your email."

  So: nothing was done, or will be done. By 8 pm, the UNCA trolls -- Dujarric's personal friends -- began again, celebrating their anonymity.

We will begin by naming the two people most in charge of UNCA. The president is Pamela Falk of CBS News, who took photographs as Inner City Press' office was raided by the UN on March 18 then threatened to sue about stories asking why she took photographs of the raid.

  Falk's first vice president and Rasputin is Louis Charbonneau of Reuters, who filed three stealth complaints (including at least one to Dujarric's personal, non-UN e-mail account) to try to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN after he was challenged on stealing and mislabeling exclusives, for which Reuters offers extra compensation. This is UNCA, the UN's Censorship Alliance. This is the UNCA Executive Committee. Watch this site

At UN, Ban Ki-moon's Office Agreed to End Security Council Media Workspace, Stonewalls on UNCA Defacement, Surveillance of Press

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 24 -- Ban Ki-moon's office has signed off on the elimination of media workspace in front of the Security Council, Ban's deputy spokesperson Eduardo Del Buey told Inner City Press on Friday. Video here, from Minute 14:41.

  Before the Security Council was temporarily relocated to the basement during a $2 billion renovation, the UN press corps had a table in front of the Council on which work could be done, while waiting to speak with ambassadors and sources.

  This table was maintained in front of the interim Security Council. But now such a table and method of work is being banned by a UN Media Access Guideline listing as parties the Department of Public Information, the Department of Safety and Security, the old UN Correspondents Association and the Office of the Spokesperson of the Secretary General.

  Inner City Press asked spokesperson Del Buey, your Office was consulted about these Guidelines?

Yes, Del Buey replied.

  "And you agree with them?"

Yes, Del Buey said.

   Inner City Press thanked him for his candor. There is no longer a doubt: Ban Ki-moon's office has agreed to the reduction in press access to the Security Council. It seems clear that UNCA has as well -- Inner City Press asked Del Buey and he did not disagree.

  UNCA's 2013 president Pamela Falk of CBS News has claimed to at least two dues paying UNCA members that she had not seen the Guidelines, though they were given to the new Free UN Coalition for Access on May 20 for comment.

  Nor in the four days Inner City Press for FUNCA has been opposing and asking about the Guidelines has UNCA's Executive Committee said anything. 

  Falk was at a UN press conference on Friday afternoon; her focus was on whispered that she must be given the first question, then demanding the speakers' business cards after asking to make-up questions. Press access? Not so much.

  In fact, just three office doors down from Falk's single occupancy CBS office, a FUNCA flier raising the issue of the loss of media access to the Security Council was defaced on the May 23, with the words "fraud" and the mis-spelled "viscous." (That's UNCA for you.) 

  Neither Falk nor her First Vice President Louis Charbonneau of Reuters, also on the scene or at least in the building on Friday, have done anything about it - at least not to stop it.

  In fact, since at latest February 22 both have been aware of multiple anonymous social media accounts associated with UNCA "leaders" -- and with Charbonneau's Reuters -- which falsely charge opponents with being funded by terrorists. To this has UNCA descended under Charbonneau and Falk. 

   Del Buey concluded Friday's noon briefing, as he has throughout the week, by saying that only DPI's Stephane Dujarric can answer. But for now Dujarric does not answer or follow through.  

 Dujarric said he would look into a UN Security camera installed about the office door of Inner City Press and FUNCA -- but has done nothing; Inner City Press had to go itself to speak with the Department of Safety and Security about it.

   Dujarric on Monday May 20 said that an erroneously blacked out speak by Palestine's Saeb Erekat would be put online on May 21. It wasn't that day: no update from Dujarric. 

  Nor the next day, after which Inner City Press witnessed an impacted Mission calling him, and returning with Dujarric's excuse about "encryption." Why encrypt the video of an open meeting about Palestine?

  Del Buey first claimed his office announces all ambassadors' departures from the Security Council, which even UNCA's "leaders" know is not true. 

  Then Del Buey said that his office announces when a country's mission wants them to. That's quite different, and only covered televised stakeouts. And as shown with Erekat, who knows where THAT goes.

   Likewise, there are many Council activities that take place when formal meetings are not underway. Inner City Press gave the example of the first working day of June, the bi-laterals. 

  That is why there was a table there before, and must be in the future -- whatever Dujarric and his partners say. Watch this site.

Behind UNCA's "Press Freedom" Speech, Screeching Falk, False Terror Funding Tweets

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 4 -- What kind of "correspondents' association" devotes itself to trying to get an investigative news web site thrown out, then shifts to anonymous social media trolling falsely accusing the web site of terrorist funding?

  One at the United Nations -- that is, the UN Correspondents Association, with which Secretary General Ban Ki-moon continues to associate, even on "World Press Freedom Day" this week.  Video here, explained below.

  Documents obtained by Inner City Press under the Freedom of Information Act show that UNCA officials met with the UN in 2012, asking for the expulsion of Inner City Press. The request was made in writing by Voice of America, which said it had the support of Reuters and Agence France Presse.

  On February 22, 2013 at an on the record meeting involving the leadership of the UN Department of Public Information and UNCA President Pamela Falk, Inner City Press specifically raised, as it had a month before, the anonymous social media posts accusing funding by the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka, which posts have triggered death threats.

  Falk sputtered, or rather screamed, that she didn't know who was behind the posts. But the account making Tamil Tiger false allegations posted photos from the Security Council stakeout, and stopped abruptly for ten days while Reuters correspondent Michelle Nichols went home to Australia.

This account revived today, again falsely alleging Tiger and other funding, and then after coverage defending taciturn UN official Herve Ladsous (who has spoon-fed Nichols and Reuters' Louis Charbonneau, as well as Voice of America's Margaret Besheer and AFP's Tim Witcher) and defending @CBS, where Falk works.

Falk has done nothing to stop or look into the false allegations of terrorist funding by her UNCA "leadership;" in fact, she ghoulishly took photographs when DPI conducted a non-consensual raid of Inner City Press' office on March 18, 2013. 

  Falk then issued a legal threat from her @CBSNews.com e-mail address, telling Inner City Press to "cease and desist" from even asking why she took photos of the raid.

  Today, Falk has taken to promoting the video of her WPFD speech, as if to bolster UNCA's and her press freedom credentials despite the organization's attempt to get media thrown out of the UN and Falk's ghoulish photographing of the UN's raid on the office of this media.

  Here now, not anonymous like the UNCA trolls but on record as Inner City Press and the Free UN Coalition for Access is video of the UN's May 2 "World Press Freedom Day" event. As captioned twice in the video, one minute in, to show the public versus real face of Falk, the audio switches from the blathering May 2 speech to the on the record statements Falk made in front of DPI on February 22, 2013. This is, we believe, the true face of UNCA. Video here.

Watch this site.

As UNTV Broadcasts Propaganda of UNCA, It Won't Explain Why or Any Rules, Says "Ask Bill Miller"

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 29 -- What is UN Television and why  and under what rules does it show outside-produced propaganda shows?

  That UNTV produces its own propaganda had become a UN fact of life. 

   It produces shows like "21st Century," paying its hosts how much it will not say, to describe for example its good works in Haiti without mentioning that it brought cholera there, killing over 7,000 people.

  But why does UNTV repeatedly show outside shows, most recently one in which UN Correspondents Association president Pamela Falk gushes about the overthrown of Gaddafi in Libya and claims that UNCA is a "trade association of all the correspondents of the United Nations"?

  That claim is patently false, and Pamela Falk - or Pamela False, her new name -- knows it. Back on February 22, in an on the record session in front of the official who run UNTV, Stephane Dujarric, Falk screamed at Inner City Press not to write about her, and not to dare write to her employer, CBS. (She would, however, send Inner City Press a censorship threat from her CBSNews.com e-mail address.)

  Now she has appeared in an “interview” with Global Connections Television, a venue which says its interviews “UN agencies and their ambassadors.” Again, which one is Falk?

  After Falk filmed the segment on April 3, multiple sources told Inner City Press she demanded in advance no questions about the Press or the Free UN Coalition for Access. Inner City Press wrote about that on April 4, here.

  Global Connections was asked, back then, for a review copy of the show. None was provided. Now it is online, and is being broadcast propaganda style in the UN's lobby.

  So on April 29, Inner City Press asked the Department of Public Information's chief -- who was himself interviewed by Global Connections Television's Bill Miller earlier this year, a seemingly conflict of interest causing segment we have yet to review -- to provide FUNCA "a similar 15 minute broadcast slot on UNTV. Please say when (soon) or explain why now, and the applicable content neutral rules."

  The response came from, who else, Dujarric. Instead of explaining any rules, or why this propaganda is on UNTV, he snarked "If you would like to appear on Bill Miller's show, you should contact him directly."

  That is obviously not the point. Rather, why is UNTV showing (repeatedly) an outside show, which is now promoting UNCA, which sought to get media thrown out of the UN?

FUNCA noted to DPI's chief with its request for rules, "the broadcast on UNTV also again raised the question of DPI's lack of impartiality or of allowing space for more than a one party system."

As noted, earlier t

his month, Dujarric threatened Inner City Press about a single tweet that mentioned World War Two and UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous who owes his JOB to France's veto power won in WW2.

  Dujarric has refused to explain how photos taken during a non-consensual raid of Inner City Press' office on March 18 were leaked to BuzzFeed on March 21, right after that publication contacted Ban's spokesman with questions about the raid. We will continue to push on all this. Watch this site.

Dujarric is UNCA's main supporter (and even an opponent of anything more than a one party system) and here are just a few reasons. Dujarric complained when Inner City Press published audio of UNCA president Pamela Falk screaming in an on the record meeting, audio here and here. What next? Watch this site.