By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, March 7 -- Who are the scribes who gladly accepted on March 7 the UN's spoon-fed spin about 126 rapes in Minova by the UN's partners in the Congolese Army?
As of this writing there only three, each to be profiled here.
Each of them knew, when they accepted the UN's not-for-attribution spin, that the story of the Minova rapes was only asked about by Inner City Press, since November 2012.
In fact, they witnessed in person UN Peacekeeping boss Herve Ladsous refusing to answer Inner City Press about the rapes on November 27 -- then went out into the hallway to accept this spin. Video here.
And so, who are they?
Most directly, perhaps, there is Tim Witcher of Agence France Presse. We start with him not only because, undisclosed in any AFP story, Ladsous has served on a board of the corporation. Rather, it was Witcher who first cravenly defended Ladsous the very day he was dumped on the UN, demanding action by the UN Censorship Alliance (UNCA) against Inner City Press for an accurate report.
Witcher is perhaps best known at the UN for asking, at a press conference in the North Lawn building about Palestine's bid to become a (non-member) State, when does Abbas' flight arrive?
When, indeed. Like another dues paying member of the UN Censorship Alliance, it appears that Twitchy Tim is meant for service as a travel agent.
Then there is Reuters, whose Louis Charbonneau calls the shots and filed the complaints but now lets Michelle Nichols do the typing, as here.
Charbonneau pretends to be a sharp journalist on issues about Iran, but is little more than a hack, claiming to feel physically threatened when he hasn't been spoken to in six months, re-packaging emails from the UK Mission as big scoops. Audio here.
A decided third place echo is Voice of America's Margaret Besheer. It appears that in all her time at the UN she has not had a single scoop or exclusive. She re-types others' news, while obsessing about the coming and goings and sickness and health of the British royals.
As a sideline she tries to throw investigative bloggers out of the UN -- then lies when her supervisors at the Broadcasting Board of Governors ask for her e-mails with the US Mission to the UN. We'll have more on this. Watch this site.