Syria Report Misleadingly "Obtained" from UN By Reuters, Which Pays for False Exclusives

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 20 -- After the UN released its Syria aid access report in the same murky, pre-spun way on June 20 as it did on April 23, and then on May 22, Reuters nevertheless said it "obtained" the report, in a story it labeled as "exclusive."

  But what does that mean?

  Let's explain: just before 6 pm on June 20, the UN Spokesperson's Office announced over its "squawk" system to correspondents still in the building that the report had been circulated. This meant it had been placed in piece of furniture in the Spokesperson's Office which has sat empty for many days now.

  An hour and a half later, Reuters said it "obtained" the report. What - in the same way that a person watching television "obtains" its content?

  One problem, previously reported by Inner City Press, is that Reuters bases compensation on claims to exclusively, false or not -- click here for that.

  The current Reuters bureau chief at the UN Louis Charbonneau, a major come-down from Patrick Worsnip, has tried to get other media thrown out of the UN then falsely claimed copyright to his complaints to the UN, filing here,background here with Electronic Frontier Foundation criticism of Reuters' move.

  In terms of the UN Spokesperson's duty to answer questions, there was by closure on June 20 no answer to Inner City Press' request to confirm or deny Ban Ki-moon was handed legal papers about the introduction of cholera into Haiti as he entered the Asia Society, Inner City Press coverage here.

   

Reuters' Shift to Paying for Claimed Exclusives Led Its UN Bureau to Predation, Under Charbonneau, Like Army Living Off the Land

By Matthew Russell Lee, Media Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, May 27 -- As corporate media gets squeezed, now does it react? At Reuters, the response was to tell reporters that analysis was no longer important, only stories labeled as exclusives, whether accurately or not.

  Some Reuters reporters complained; others left the company. Some in both categories have spoken to Inner City Press. At the UN, bureau chief Patrick Worsnip used to give credit to others, for example to Inner City Press on the North Korea UN Development Program whistleblower story it was first to report, here.

  But along with the change in Reuters' compensation scheme, now tied to the number of claimed exclusives, at the UN it changed bureau chief, to Louis Charbonneau.

  Ultimately when challenged about his uncredited use of Press exclusives, Charbonneau would use his position as First Vice President of the old UN Correspondents' Association to seek censorship of Inner City Press stories and photographs, then to seek expulsion from the UNCA Executive Committee to which Inner City Press had been elected, then expulsion from the UN.

  The actual request for expulsion, which Voice of America said was pushed (with reference to UNDP Watch, see above) and supported by Reuters, was exposed under the US Freedom of Information Act. But when the documents and issues were shown to Reuters executives Stephen J. Adler, Greg McCune, Paul Ingrassia and Walden Siew, the pattern did not cease.

  Rather it became more vicious, anonymous social media trolling falsely accusing Inner City Press of being funded by terrorists, more false complaints filed with UN Security, involving Charbonneau's subordinate Michelle Nichols and, rather desperately, Charbonneau himself. 

   Third time's the charm? Their anonymous social media trolling has continued online, even into Memorial Day weekend.

At the UN, Charbonneau even went so far as to tell an accreditation official that if the UN didn't throw out Inner City Press, he might well leave the UN. While the FOIA exposures stalled the open part of the campaign, Charbonneau has not left.

  The wider comparison might be between this "new' Reuters and the Congolese army. You change the mode of compensation and tell underlings they must "live off the land." 

  Get claimed exclusives how ever you can, and do whatever you deem necessary to try to maintain this predatory turf. When there is trouble, invoke wider bodies like UNCA, or the UN itself. The analogy could be extended. Watch this site.

As Reuters' Pundit Shafer Is Fine With Limits on Free Press, Its UN Bureau Stokes Attacks, Anonymously

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 26 -- So one of the columnists Reuters collects like pets, Jack Shafer, thinks that secret subpoenas to look at journalists e-mails are not a problem.

  Maybe Shafer's piece is just to be contrarian, to put an intellectual gloss on a company, Thomson Reuters, which is mostly about servicing high frequency stock traders.

  But contempt for independent free press can be found in "news" parts of Reuters more faceless than Shafer. In 2012, Reuters UN bureau chief Louis Charbonneau repeatedly tried to get the UN to throw out Inner City Press, after a controversy about the uncredited use of stories first reported by Inner City Press. 

 (Charbonneau at an on the record meeting was asked to explain, but refused to, audio here.)

  Turns out Reuters ties compensation to a reporter's number of labeled exclusives, even if the label is inaccurate.

Inner City Press wrote to Reuters' editor Stephen Adler and showed that the proceeding Reuters' Charbonneau hadstarted was leading to death threats from extremist supporters of Sri Lanka's government. 

  Adler and three other top executives did nothing; Charbonneau ramped up his campaign, including telling the UN he might leave if they didn't throw Inner City Press out, a real threat given the "service" Reuters' Charbonneau provides to the UN and certain Western missions.

  In 2013, Inner City Press showed Adler that Charbonneau's subordinate Michelle Nichols, perhaps on his behalf, was linked to an anonymous social media account which among other things continued the false accusation of funding by the defunct Tamil Tigers. 

  Adler did nothing; nor did other Reuters officials made aware of it, including but not limited to Greg McCune, Paul Ingrassia and Walden Siew.

   This social media trolling has continued, including this Memorial Day weekend. 

 Meanwhile the UN Correspondents Association's Executive Committee, on which Charbonneau is First Vice President, not only has done nothing about anti-press moves in UN, from the proposed elimination of media workspace in front of the Security Council to the installing of a UN surveillance camera over the entrance to the office of the Press and the new Free UN Coalition for Access. And now this.

  In fact, the trolling social media accounts now claim that the lack of fight back to the elimination of media workspace is tied to the Reuters promoted fantasy of funding by a defunct terrorist group. This is Reuters. Watch this site.