Amid Syria War, UNCA Led by CBS, Reuters & AFP Start 2d Counterfeit @InnerCityPress

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, September 7 -- The war in Syria has a smaller, sickening echo into the UN in New York: the insiderjournalists who held a murky "UN briefing" with Saudi supported rebel boss Jarba are now stealthy trying to undermine critical media.

  During the week, a long-time UN Correspondents Association bigwig cut off a question about rebels using chemical weapons, and then demanded the UN spokesperson say what media the questioner worked for.

  Now this weekend, a seemingly larger team from UNCA is counterfeiting @InnerCityPress, one of two Twitterati 100 covering the UN named by Foreign Policy magazine. The UNCA insiders, many of whom merely re-tweet their corporate media's output or fawning selfie photographs with those in power, want to undermine the investigative Press.

So far with the counterfeit account they established on September 5, right after InnerCityPress.com analyzed how CBS, Reuters and Gulf media were the only ones allowed to ask questions of US Ambassador Samantha Power, they have reached out to make 900 follows.

  They get some follow-backs -- 38 so far -- one of whom later told Inner City Press, I thought you guys were starting a new account so I followed.

  That person and others then unfollowed. But the UNCA insiders have started a second counterfeit account. This one, because Inner City Press questions and continues to question the US' public evidence on chemical weapons, and why it did not commit at least to wait for the UN report, draws a link between Inner City Press and Syria's Assad -- anonymously, of course.

To be an anonymous part of an anonymous crowd making such attacks: this is the UNCA board.

  It is derivative and parasitic: they follow those who have chosen to follow @InnerCityPress or @FUNCA_info, theFree UN Coalition for Access which Inner City Press co-founded after quitting UNCA, seeing as they try to get journalists thrown out of the UN, and in the case of Reuters' bureau chief Lou Charbonneau, spy for the UN through UN accreditation official Stephane Dujarric. Story here, audio here, document here.

  Charbonneau told Dujarric that if he didn't thrown Inner City Press out of the UN, Charbonneau -- the go to guy for pro-Western spin -- might leave the UN. Now the UNCA-linked counterfeit account follows Dujarric.

  AFP's Witcher complained to UN Security, leading with the way Inner City Press asked a question to UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous, who previously served on one of AFP's management boards.

  Now they follow and try to confusion countries' Mission to the UN, many of whom already follow the real@InnerCityPress. This was raised to the top of the UN Department of Public Information, when in February 2013 UNCA already had a half dozen of these anti-Press anonymous troll social media accounts, but it has continued. 

 One observer called these UNCA Executive Committee members, not without irony, "Ban's shabiha." Or more generously, "Lapdogs with laptops."

  And DPI had threatened the suspend or withdraw Inner City Press' accreditation for hanging the sign of the Free UN Coalition for Access on the door of its shared office, while UNCA has five signs.

  The reality is, after some in the UN tried to get Inner City Press thrown out, after that these UNCA scribes took up the cause: Voice of America, Reuters through Charbonneau and now Michelle Nichols who works under him, Agence France Presse's Tim Witcher, and

Bloomberg, part of those trying to get Inner City Press thrown out until after this was raised to Matthew Winkler and the correspondents was told to stay away from the campaign - at least visibly.

But there are more, linked to these counterfeit Twitter accounts:

Pamela Falk of CBS, figurehead 2013 UNCA president, who send sycophantic tweets at the Ambassadors of the US and UK, who are now followed by the/her UNCA counterfeit account;

Margaret Besheer of Voice of America, who tried to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN; and the Freedom of Information Act inquiries just keep revealing more.

Ban's UNCA Lunch of the Lost, Feb 7, 2013, credit Evan Schneider, UNPhoto. From left: OSSG's Del Buey; Denis Fitzgerald of Saudi Press Agency; OSSG's Nesirky; Melissa Kent of CBC; Sylviane Zehil of L'Orient le Jour; Tim Witcher of AFP; Ali Barada of An-Nahar; Ban Ki-moon, Kahraman Halicelik of Turkish Radio & TV; Pamela S. Falk of CBS; Lou Charbonneau of Reuters; Bouchra Benyoussef of Maghreb Arab Press; Yasuomi Sawa of Kyodo News; Masood Haider of Dawn; Unknown; Zhenqiu Gu of Xinhua; Stephane Dujarric of UN DPI

   

At UN Amid Syria, Gulf & Western Media UNCA Starts Counterfeit of ICP, and Ban Ki-moon's UN Cheers Them On, Joins In

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, September 6 -- The same group of insider wire services and Gulf media which tried to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN, unsuccessfully so far, have this week set up counterfeit Inner City Press social media accounts and troll-followed UN Missions, agencies and people who follow the Free UN Coalition for Access,@FUNCA_info.

  This comes less than a month after @InnerCityPress was named one of two "Twitterati" for UN coverage by Foreign Policy magazine (the only one based at the UN), and after InnerCityPress.com reported on the propagandistic distribution of questions at the missile-justifying stakeout by US Ambassador Samantha Power on September 5, here.

The goal seems to be to now create confusion about which is the real @InnerCityPress account. It is not hard:@InnerCityPress has 6,725 followers and UNCA-linked counterfeit for now less than 25, while mass-following over 800. It's a nasty piece of business. 

  Still, a communications chief of an NGO targeted by the UNCA trolls was fooled, and snarked about the account. Other FUNCA followers, when targeted, automatically followed back the counterfeit account.

It's a new low for this gang of scribes, who hide behind anonymous accounts since they work for big media companies like Reuters and Agence France Presse.

The UN bureau chiefs of these two companies, Louis Charbonneau and Tim Witcher respectively, both tried to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN, as documented by e-mails obtained from US government agency Voice of America under the Freedom of Information Act.

    (VOA's Broadcast Board of Governors, on which Secretary of State John Kerry serves, has started stonewalling on the follow-up request, so an appeal is being filed this week.)

   Click here for VOA's request that Inner City Press' UN accreditation be "reviewed," saying it had the support of Reuters, AFP and Bloomberg (which after a letter to Matthew Winkler purported to drop out of the campaign.)

Reuters' Charbonneau as first vice president of the UN Correspondents Association, it is documented, passed an internal anti-Press UNCA document to UN accreditation official Stephane Dujarric three minutes after promising not to do so. Story here, audio here, document here.

  Once the Voice of America led push was exposed, Dujarric begrudgingly extended Inner City Press' accreditation, while providing pointers on how to cover Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and his head of peacekeeping Herve Ladsous. 

  Inner City Press quit the UNCA Executive Committee, to which it had been elected, and co-founded the Free UN Coalition for Access to actually protect journalists. (Here is a sample project by a FUNCA member in Somaliland, here.)

  Only this week, at a UN noon briefing, an UNCA insider tried to cut off the question of a FUNCA member reporting for Pacifica Radio's WBAI who asked about chemical weapons use by rebels in Syria. Click here for that.

In setting up the counterfeit social media account, the UNCA insiders stole the work of FUNCA's co-founder. UNCA long ago stopped defending journalists - it tries to get some thrown out of the UN, or to steal or destroy the work of others. 

  And the UN, informed of UNCA's trolling back in February -- here is on the record audio of UNCA's 2013 president Pamela Falk, ultimately responsible for all this -- has done nothing. 

  In fact, the UN's Department of Public Information has threatened to suspend or withdraw Inner City Press' UN accreditation for hanging a sign of the Free UN Coalition for Access on the door of its shared office, while UNCA has five signs.

  It's like being in a game in which the referee not only permits one side to sleazily (anonymously) attack the other, but even joins in gleefully in the attack. Apparently it's the law of the jungle.

  The UNCA Executive Committee members who have at a minimum done nothing to stop this are, as pictured lunching with Ban Ki-moon, Denis Fitzgerald of Saudi Press Agency; Melissa Kent of CBC; Sylviane Zehil of L'Orient le Jour; Tim Witcher of AFP; Ali Barada of An-Nahar; Kahraman Halicelik of Turkish Radio & TV; Pamela S. Falk of CBS; Lou Charbonneau of Reuters; Bouchra Benyoussef of Maghreb Arab Press; Yasuomi Sawa of Kyodo News; Masood Haider of Dawn; Unknown; Zhenqiu Gu of Xinhua; Stephane Dujarric of UN DPI

  This counterfeit trolling, this stealing or attempted destruction of journalists' work and attempts to block questions or censor is exactly was the Free UN Coalition for Access was formed and will continue. Watch this site.