After Reuters & AFP Exposed as UN Trolls in MediaBistro, Anonymous Fightback, Crying About Office Space

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, September 11 -- Two days after UN insiders Louis Charbonneau of Reuters and Tim Witcher of Agence France Presse were called out as anonymous trolls in MediaBistro, they still had no response, at least in their own names.

Rather, a series of anonymous commenters weighed in, trying to convince the MediaBistro author that at least one of their two imposter @InnerCityPress accounts had always been labeled "Satire" and "Not."

  Neither is true, as the reporter himself soon realized. Still rather than actually responding and explaining for example why Charbonneau gave an internal document of the UN Correspondents Association to UN accreditation official Stephane Dujarric three minutes after promising not to (story here, audio here, document here), they just continued to troll. But they left finger prints.

  For example one of the names adopted for these comments is "David Spring" -- the same one used in March to argue that Inner City Press once "made" another journalist cry. This is exactly an argument (and person) used by Charbonneau, then parroted by ventriloquist David Spring.

Lou "Mean Girl" Charbonneau, the handing goes both ways?

  Since this troll's head is again raised, it must again be pointed out: an Italian reporter at the UN took so much offense to Inner City Press quoting another correspondent about the unfairness of so many Italian media getting offices, and all near each other as “Italian row,” that she cried.

  Inner City Press apologized but seriously, the UN's unfairness in giving out office space has had to be raised in 2013 as well. Three separate affiliates of the US State Department, including Voice of America, each have separate offices, while other countries' wire services were asked to share space.

  Now in September 2013 it remains the fact that Russia's ITAR TASS is confined to a windowless photocopy room, while others have their own offices facing the river, from which to troll and write inaccurate stories. Who's crying now? Watch this site.

   

Exposed as Trolls, UNCA Scribes of AFP, Reuters & CBS Just Keep On, Giving Tie to UK Deputy, Ban's Shabiha?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, September 9 -- On a night when UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon blithely gave a speech in honor of UN Ambassador Samantha Power, while purporting to be an honest broker between parties on Syria, the group now known as Ban's shabiha resumed their anonymous social media trolling.

  Earlier today, Ban's insider journalists' campaign to impersonate the @InnerCityPress twitter feed, named one of two "Twitterati 100" covering the UN by Foreign Policy magazine, was exposed in MediaBistro's FishBowlNY. 

  The reporter there saw the documentary evidence of Reuter's Lou Charbonneau and AFP's Tim Witcher having tried to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN, joining Voice of America according to VOA documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. VOA here, Reuters here, AFP here.

  But beyond a bogus anonymous comment on the story calling Inner City Press is "pro Syria, pro Rwanda and anti French," later on Monday another of the UNCA-linked troll accounts started up again.

  It was strange: earlier on Monday UNCA's clearly outgunned 2013 president Pamela Falk of CBS had sent all UNCA members a desparate e-mail presenting herself and unnamed Executive Committee members as the victim, when they have been responsible for the trolling since February 2013.

  Rather than try to reign in her those who actually run UNCA, or who seemingly work more directly with the UN, Falk send that e-mail and let them continue. This ill-serves her own members.

  So did the faux "UN briefing" she and some on the UNCA board sponsored by Saudi supported Syria rebel boss Jarba. It was publicized only to those who pay money to UNCA. There was no right to reply. But it was called a "UN briefing."

  UNCA through its Executive Committee is decidedly one-sided and, at least as some see it, unprofessional. They give gifts (and documents, in the case of Reuters) to those they are supposed to cover. Last week, UNCA bigwigs gave a tie to departing UK Deputy Permanent Representative Parham, he thanked them and some notable others.

  Parham is a fine guy: but is this appropriate?

  UNCA gave a tie to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's Deputy Spokesman on his way INTO the job. An UNCA past president made campaign contributions to candidates ostensibly being covered. The current president for 2013, Pamela Falk, openly tweets at Western ambassadors: look! Look at the positive coverage I am giving! 

  When Inner City Press asked, at a UN noon briefing, for a description of the UN's relationship with UNCA and details about the Jarba briefing, no answer was provided. It's that the UN uses UNCA or its Executive Committee. In 2012 this involved UNCA Executive Committee members from Voice of America, Reuters and AFP trying to get Inner City Pressthrown out of the UN.

  In that campaign, Reuters Lou Charbonneau gave the UN's Stephane Dujarric an anti-Press internal UNCA document,three minutes after promising not to. Story here, audio here,document here.

Reuters' & UNCA's Charbonneau hand to Ban

And now, this new campaign: the counterfeiting of Inner City Press' twitter feed, just after it was named one of two "Twitterati 100" covering the UN (no UNCA member was named) by Foreign Policy magazine, by so far two fake social media accounts, targeted for example at Parham's boss Mark Lyall Grant, as Australian Ambassador (and Security Council president for September) Gary Quinlan. 

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

  It's nasty -- a Syria style tactic, you might say. Some, not without irony, see in UNCA's Executive Committee Ban Ki-moon's shabiha. Watch this site.

   

After AFP & Reuters at UN Named as Trolls in MediaBistro, Anonymous Reply Calls Inner City Press "Pro Syria, Pro Rwanda, Anti French"

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, September 9 -- Amid Syria spin and mis-information at the UN, insider journalists' campaign to impersonate the @InnerCityPress twitter feed, named one of two "Twitterati 100" covering the UN by Foreign Policy magazine, was exposed today in MediaBistro's FishBowlNY.

  The response? Anonymous commenting on the expose, of course. A person purporting to speak for (all?) UN jouralists says that Inner City Press is "pro Syria, pro Rwanda and anti French." Wonder who that could be?

  The "pro Syria" is telling. The counterfeit accounts began just after InnerCityPress.com published a piece on the three questions permitted to US Ambassador Samantha Power on Syria.

 All were Executive Committee members of the UN Correspondents Association, which sponsored in late July a faux "UN briefing" by Saudi supported Syria rebel boss Ahmad al Jarba, in an event publicized only to those who pay UNCA money.

As recounted in the MediaBistro piece, the imposter twitter accounts were pitched at every follower of the Free UN Coalition for Access, @FUNCA_info, which Inner City Press co-founded. Then they began to be pitched at the 6,700 followers of @InnerCityPress, purely to create confusion and harm.

Now the old UN Correspondents Association, whose Executive Committee has tried to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN, and who agreed to limit media access to the Security Council and General Assembly, has emailed that it too has a twitter account. 

   But UNCA has only 19 followers -- and its six tweets are all mere links posted by UNCA's 2013 president Pamela Falk, who was informed of Team UNCA's trolling in February but has done nothing to stop it. The UN Department of Public Information, which partners (exclusively it seems) with UNCA did not stop it.

The glassed-in bulletin board in front of the large meeting room the UN gives to UNCA, for example for the faux "UN briefing" by Jarba, has not been updated since February -- a wan letter from Falk.

  But FUNCA's fliers on a non-glassed in bulletin board FUNCA fought to get installed on the fourth floor are taken down by the UN at the end of each month. The UN has tried to create a one party system, while presenting itself as a voice of democracy and even free speech elsewhere. 

  When a petition for a media work table at the Security Council was presented to DPI, some who signed it were questioned by UNCA. When people join FUNCA, they are targeted, most often anonymously. (By contrast, these exposes are on the record, and have been limited to those who control UNCA, not the regular members.) Co-founder Luiz Rampelotto's work was stolen by the trolls. So@FUNCA_info proceeds as it does. We'll have more on this. 

The anonymous commenter says Inner City Press has been accusing Reuters and AFP. But the documents were released under the Freedom of Information Act by the Voice of America and its Broadcast Board of Governors.

Voice of America tried to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN (letter of VOA's Steve Redisch to the UN's Stephane Dujarric, here); VOA documents say they had the support of Reuters (here) and AFP (here).

Also, Reuters' bureau chief Louis Charbonneau gave an anti-Press internal UNCA document to the UN's Dujarric three minutes after promising not to do so. Story here, audio here,document here.  Reuters bigwigs including Stephen J. Adler have been made aware of all this and have done nothing.

  These are documents, which MediaBistro had when it published its expose. Anonymous trolling can't answer why UNCA's first vice president Lou Charbonneau of Reuters gave an internal UNCA document to UN Accreditation official Dujarric. 

  UNCA has not addressed it, Dujarric and DPI have not. What is UNCA's role with the UN - to spy for it? To give internal documents against other journalists - in that case, one elected to UNCA's Executive Committee?

  AFP's Tim Witcher filed a complaint with UN Security leading with how Inner City Press asked a question of Herve Ladsous, the fourth Frenchman in a row to head UN Peacekeeping. This is on the record. And there's more. Watch this site.