As BuzzFeed, VICE & Mashable Talk International News Expansion, What About Better and More Aggressive Coverage Of and At the United Nations?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, September 18 -- When representatives of BuzzFeed, VICE and Mashable described their non-US news coverage on Thursday, the event's title was a question: “What in the World are [they] up to as they expand their international coverage?” 

  But most audience questions focused on how well or badly they pay, why they generally don't use freelancers, at least in war zones, and whether the “unmediated” news style ascribed to VICE is even possible.

  VICE News' Jason Mojica diplomatically declined to describe restrictions imposed by the Islamic State to profile the group in Raqa'a. When asked about the lack of back-story in the piece, he said if viewers are watching on a computer they can search for the information they need. 

  Mojica recounted when TV networks called VICE to get in contact with Simon Ostrovsky, he realized the networks don't do reporting anymore; they just report from the studio.

   Louise Roug, Global News Editor of Mashable (disclosure here) said her organization which began covering tech and social media is now opening bureaux in Australia and London. She sent a correspondent to Erbil, but wouldn't to Syria.

   Miriam Elder of Buzzfeed spoke of keeping overhead low -- no office, and “don't stay in the Ritz.” One questioner in the audience wondered if her story of staying with a friend in DC rather than a hotel meant staff are coerced into not being remunerated enough. 

  Elder said people are paid well -- just don't stay in the Ritz. She recounted Rosie Gray finding how Putin's NYT op-ed was placed, and wondered why in the Internet age anyone would write a story merely ABOUT Putin's op-ed, which could simply be linked to. Why indeed.

  Inner City Press had wanted to attend, but got caught up in the UN as the Security Council meeting on Ebola ran until 8 pm. Watching a live-stream of the NYU Journalism Institute event from the UNSC stakeout was a bit surreal, and gave rise to this question: how are these three covering the UN? How would they do it differently than those here?

  As it is, the UN Secretariat doles out information that Big Media includes as a paragraph of longer, round-up stories. Few write what is obvious to many here, diplomats and staff, that the UN Secretariat has become subservient to the US (or to France, in the case of UN Peacekeeping). 

  Perhaps because the UN is in the US, it is not viewed as exotic international coverage. But it is worth covering, and differently. That is is one of the things that the new Free UN Coalition for Access is trying to bring about, along with a Freedom of Information Act for the UN. Watch this site.

   

Up To The Minute, CBS Is Being Asked of Falk's Legal Threat About Reporting Raid, BuzzFeed, Photos

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNdisclosed Location, March 24, updated below -- When a legal threat about a mere question raised in a published article is made, from an @CBSNews.com address, how should one respond?

  If one believes in the right of the Press to raise questions, without being threatened into silence by mega-corporations, one publishes the threat. Then, one writes to the corporation itself, asking how the threat is legitimate.

  The threat was made on March 23 by Pamela Falk of CBS News, who also in January became without competition the president of the UN Correspondents Association. In 2012 this UNCA, now known as the UN's Censorship Alliance, spend most of its meetings trying to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN.

  On February 22 in an on the record meeting, Falk screamed at Inner City Press not to use her name. Then, after she took photographs of the UN's March 18 non-consensual search of Inner City Press' office and photographs appeared on Buzzfeed on March 22, Falk sent a legal threat to Inner City Press to not even question her role.

And so the following is directed to producers of CBSNews' Up To The Minute, and higher in CBS:

This concerns a legal threat sent yesterday by Pamela Falk from CBSNews.com. It is a cease and desist letter claiming that a question raised in a March 22 article on InnerCityPress.com casts her in a “false light.”

Since the threat came from Ms. Falk's @CBSNews.com e-mail address, and she apparently reports primarily for Up To The Minute, I'm writing to you.

Is this a threat from CBS News or CBS? Or is it a personal threat from Falk, using her CBSNews.com e-mail address? Is it appropriate?

The short background is that the UN on March 18 without notice or consent searched and took photographs in Inner City Press' office at the UN. Pamela Falk also took photographs.

As with the legal threat, it was unclear if Falk was operating for CBSNews or for the UN Correspondents' Association, of which without competition she became president in January. The question was asked at the UN's noon briefing on March 19, but was not answered.

Three photographs of the Inner City Press office appeared in BuzzFeed on March 22, in an article noting the UNCA had sought to get me thrown out of the UN, most recently filing UN complaints for characterizing some correspondents as lapdogs.

(Obviously that term is not actionable. For your information, Inner City Press used the term after a question about 126 rapes by the Congolese Army which the UN supports which Inner City Press asked  the UN and its Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous a half dozen times since November was answered by the UN but only on background to hand-picked friendly correspondents who had never asked the question, and who predicably wrote pro-UN accounts.)

A follow up piece on InnerCityPress, also on March 22, asked:

"...as the raid took place, one stopped and took photographs: Pamela Falk of CBS News. 

"Why did she take, and presumptively give to BuzzFeed, photographs from inside Inner City Press' office? She is the president of the UN Correspondents Association, which in 2012 tried to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN. 

"If Falk, who Inner City Press witnessed taking pictures, is not the one who gave them to BuzzFeed, then the photos were taken by the UN and given to the anonymous 'Concerned UN Reporter' who did."

The following day Pamela Falk @CBSNews.com, quoting only the middle of these three paragraphs, wrote:

From: Falk, Pamela @cbsnews.com
Date: Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 2:28 PM
Subject: Inner City Press
To: Matthew.Lee [at] innercitypress.com
Cc: "Falk, Pamela" @cbsnews.com

Dear Mr. Lee:

On March 22, you published the following statement, referring to me:

“Why did she take, and presumptively give to BuzzFeed, photographs from inside Inner City Press' office?”

I did not give photographs to BuzzFeed or to anyone else, and I did not take the photographs that BuzzFeed published.

Please cease and desist from publishing statements which are either inaccurate or cast my actions in a false light.

Pamela Falk

How could it be legal actionable to ask -- ask! -- if Falk who was seen taking photographs might have been involved in passing photographs to BuzzFeed?

Why would CBS, or a CBS reporter, make a legal argument that would cast a legal pall over the most basic of news analysis or rumination in the media? You can't ask questions?

Along with asking that you clarify whether the March 23 legal threat is a legal threat from or condoned by CBS, this is also a request to be informed why and on what basis Falk took photographs of the non-consensual search of Inner City Press' office at the UN on March 18, and what has and will be done with the photographs she took.

During Falk's nine week tenure atop UNCA other problems have occurred, including UNCA “leaders” setting up at least four anonymous social media accounts to try to undermine Inner City Press and the new Free UN Coalition for Access, tearing down and defacing FUNCA flyers.

On February 22 Falk claimed that her lawyers -- apparently, from CBS -- told her that for Inner City Press to contact media organizations like CBS to inquire into their policies could “constitute a crime.”

How can that be true? Are CBS or CBS News lawyers those to whom Falk referred? What will they do now?

Is the above -- and there is more -- reflective of or consistent with the policies of CBS, CBS News and its Up To The Minute?

Watch this site.

Update of 9:45 pm March 24 - Joseph Gelosi, Broadcast Producer of 

CBS News, Up to the Minute, writes "

I advise you to direct your question to Ms. Falk at the email whence you received the threat." How is it possible that an official as CBS simply refers the question back to Pam Falk?  Media FAIL. We'll have more on this.

Did CBS Sign Off on Pamela Falk's Bogus Anti Free Press Legal Threat to ICP?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNdisclosed Location, March 23 -- For one reporter to send a legal threat to another for a published story may be considered strange. 

  But when the threat is entirely frivolous, and seems intended only to discourage further reporting, the threat itself should be reported on.

  Pamela Falk covers the UN for CBS News; this year without any competition she took over the presidency of the UN Correspondents Association, a group which theGuardian UK and others showed in 2012 involved in trying to throw out the investigative Press.

  Things have gotten worse under Falk, with UNCA leaders setting up anonymous social media accounts to try to undermine Inner City Press and the new Free UN Coalition for Access, defacing FUNCA flyers, and filing complaints with UN Security based entirely on speech.

  Falk herself on February 22 screamed at Inner City Press not to use her name in any reporting or questions, and that contacting media organization including CBS to ask of their policies “might constitute a crime.”

  Then on March 18, when the UN conducted a search of Inner City Press' office without notice or consent, Falk was seen taking photographs.

Inner City Press asked at the March 19 noon briefing about the “UNCA President” -- not using her name, as she requested -- taking photographs of the raid. But no answer came, from the UN or Falk.

On March 22 an article appeared in BuzzFeed about the raid, with three photographs depicting what the UN called “garbage” in Inner City Press' office.

  In the BuzzFeed article it was noted that Falk, the president of UNCA, “declined to comment.” Inner City Press wrote a follow up on the BuzzFeed story, again asking about Falk's photographing on March 18.

 On Saturday March 23, Falk sent Inner City Press a “cease and desist” notice:

From: Falk, Pamela @cbsnews.com
Date: Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 2:28 PM
Subject: Inner City Press
To: Matthew.Lee [at] innercitypress.com
Cc: "Falk, Pamela" @cbsnews.com

Dear Mr. Lee:

On March 22, you published the following statement, referring to me:

“Why did she take, and presumptively give to BuzzFeed, photographs from inside Inner City Press' office?”

I did not give photographs to BuzzFeed or to anyone else, and I did not take the photographs that BuzzFeed published.

Please cease and desist from publishing statements which are either inaccurate or cast my actions in a false light.

Pamela Falk

  While we continue and will continue to ask about the role of Falk's UNCA and the UN in taking and distributing the photographs, including to BuzzFeed, and whether CBS News signed off on this cease and desist letter about another media's reporting, the legal threat is bogus.

  Here's what came before and after what Falk quoted:

"While reporters from among others Al Jazeera and Tim Witcher of Agence France Presse walked right by as the raid took place, one stopped and took photographs: Pamela Falk of CBS News.

"Why did she take, and presumptively give to BuzzFeed, photographs from inside Inner City Press' office? She is the president of the UN Correspondents Association, which in 2012 tried to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN.

 "If Falk, who Inner City Press witnessed taking pictures, is not the one who gave them to BuzzFeed, then the photos were taken by the UN and given to the anonymous 'Concerned UN Reporter' who did."

   How could it be legal actionable to ask -- ask! -- if Falk who was seen taking photographs might have been involved in passing photographs to BuzzFeed? 

 Why would CBS, or a CBS reporter, make a legal argument that would cast a legal pall over the most basic of news analysis or rumination in the media? You can't ask questions?

  Falk appears to be going off the deep end, at least in terms of anti free press, pro corporate and anti free inquiry legal arguments. At the on the record February 22 meeting she screamed, just use my name! Audio here.

  To be charitable, perhaps she should not have taken the UNCA post, if seeing her name in print, even as part of a question, is so painful to her.

  But it's time to answer: why DID she take photographs of the raid of Inner City Press' office on March 18? And have CBS and CBS News signed off on, or will take action on, the March 23 bogus legal threat about a question asked in an article?

 Since Falk says it “might be a crime” to contact CBS, we for now do this as an open letter, using the two batches of names gleaned: Falk appeared on CBS Up To The Minute, which is directed by James McGrath and Chris Easley. Its executive producer is Brian Applegate; its many producers include Joseph Gelosi, Norman Gittleson, Tony DiPolvere, Anlynn Truong, Jenn Eaker and Erin Petrun.

  Then a reader wrote in: “Falk reports to the CBS foreign desk not Up to the Minute... Jeff Fager is the president of CBS News....Leslie Moonves is President and co-CEO Sumner Redstone is Chairman and co-CEO...the Dept you want CBS standards and practices... also Falk's official title is CBS News foreign affairs consultant.....she is not a staff correspondent...one would think that she got approval from somebody in Fager's office before she ran for UNCA office, likely Pamela Mason Exec VP just retired.”

  So: why did CBS' Pam Falk take photographs of the raid of Inner City Press' office on March 18? And have CBS and CBS News signed off on, or will take action on, the March 23 bogus legal threat about a question asked in an article? Watch this site.

After Photographing UN Raid, Pamela Falk of CBS News & UNCA Sends Inner City Press a Legal Threat About a Question in a Story

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNdisclosed Location, March 23 -- After Pamela Falk of CBS took photographs during the non-consensual search of Inner City Press office by the UN on March 18, and photographs were published by BuzzFeed on March 22, Inner City Press posed a question.

   Why did Falk, who is also the president of the UN Correspondents Association which has tried to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN, “take and presumptively give to BuzzFeed photographs from Inner City Press' office?”

   Before the BuzzFeed story, which came out Friday afternoon and which noted that Falk declined to comment, Inner City Press had asked in writing and in the March 19 UN noon briefing why the president of UNCA, Falk, was allowed by the UN to be taking photographs of the raid.

   Falk never answered that question; nor to the UN, even when it was re-iterated to UN official Stephane Dujarric in writing.

   Now now on Saturday afternoon, Pam Falk who is a lawyer has sent not answer but a legal threat:

From: Falk, Pamela @cbsnews.com
Date: Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 2:28 PM
Subject: Inner City Press
To: Matthew.Lee [at] innercitypress.com
Cc: "Falk, Pamela" @cbsnews.com

Dear Mr. Lee:

On March 22, you published the following statement, referring to me:

“Why did she take, and presumptively give to BuzzFeed, photographs from inside Inner City Press' office?”

I did not give photographs to BuzzFeed or to anyone else, and I did not take the photographs that BuzzFeed published.

Please cease and desist from publishing statements which are either inaccurate or cast my actions in a false light.

Pamela Falk

  There. We've run it in full, less than an hour after receipt. But in what light CAN we cast Falk's ghoulish photographing of the raid of Inner City Press' office on March 18? 

  Falk has had numerous opportunities to clarify or just explain why she took the photographs, but has not. If she appears in a negative light it is largely Falk's fault.

   She bears other responsibility -- presumptively, of course. The UN has denied, through Dujarric, giving the photographs to BuzzFeed. They were given by an anonymous “Concerned UN Reporter” who is then quoted defending UNCA.

   Falk is the president of UNCA. Just as with her UNCA Executive Committee members defacing flyers of the Free UN Coalition for Access, and setting up anonymous social media accounts to try to undermine FUNCA and Inner City Press, Falk bears some responsibility, that no tin horn cease and desist letter with the term of art “false light” can solve.

 Falk, as we've reported, claimed to Inner City Press on February 22 that she was advised by lawyers -- herself? -- that for Inner City Press to contact media organizations including hers to ask their policies "might constitute a crime."

  Why has UNCA under Falk gone even further into the gutter, with false social media accounts? Again, why DID Falk take photographs of the UN's raid on Inner City Press' office, and search of its papers, on March 18?

  And what steps has Falk as UNCA president taken to identify which UNCA “leader,” if as she says not herself, obtained the photographs taken during the raid and forwarded them, anonymously, to BuzzFeed? We will have more on this. UNCA's in the gutter - but CBS and CBS News are hitting new lows daily. Watch this site.

UN Refuses To Explain Searching Papers, Taking Photos and Passing Them to BuzzFeed, Anonymously

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNdisclosed Location, March 23 -- When the UN and its UN Censorship Alliance want to retaliate against and throw out a journalist, what do they do?

They raid the reporter's office without notice or consent, search papers and take photographs and give them out, anonymously, to BuzzFeed.

  

 Inner City Press has three times now asked the UN “to state its knowledge of how photographs taken during the non-consensual entry / search of Inner City Press' office on March 18 were then sent from a 'Concerned UN Reporter' account to BuzzFeed.”

  Specifically, “were these the photographs that the UN allowed UN Correspondents Association president Pamela Falk of CBS to take that day? Or were these the photographs the UN took?”

  If the UN took the photos ostensibly for health reasons, why did they give them out? (In terms of health, remember, this is the same UN that brought cholera to Haiti by pouring raw sewage into drinking water then denied all claims after more than 5000 were killed.)

  UN official Stephane Dujarric, who in 2012 on grounds having nothing to do with cleanliness but only content was asked by UNCA and Voice of America to “review” Inner City Press' accreditation, twice evaded and the third time not responded to the simple request.

  Dujarric replied, “Regarding the photos on BuzzFeed. they were not shared by the UN with the author and I can't very well ask her where she got them.”

The “her” is Rosie Gray, who beyond this story has been breaking ground exposing lobbying by Malaysia and others, and for example interviewing Susan Rice. It's fine to publish material given anonymous.

  But how can the UN explaining giving out these photographs? (Or, embedded Pam Falk of CBS and UNCA being allowed by the UN to take them?)

  Inner City Press has followed up, “aware that DPI shared photographs taken during their non-consensual search of Inner City Press office with other resident correspondents. That was inappropriate, especially now that digital copies of said photographs were sent to BuzzFeed -- anonymously, of course, in fine UNCA fashion -- by 'Concerned UN Reporter.' 

"This is a request that the UN explain why DPI shared these photographs, ostensibly taken for some UN safety and security purpose, with scribes known to have sought, and to seek, the expulsion of Inner City Press?”

 With some, the photos are having their intended or predictable effect. As simply one example, a Hayes Brown of "Think Progress" has opined that "I've had a problem with the tone of his posts for years" and "having seen the pictures in Gray's piece, if real, I'd have reported Lee, too."

  Reported? To whom -- the Tone Police?

  Some, titillated by photographs without asking their context or provenance, have mis-stated that UNCA, Voice of America, Tim Witcher of Agence France Presse and Louis Charbonneau of Reuters pushed to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN on cleanliness grounds (the UN Cleanliness Association?)

  This is false: they hadn't even been in the Inner City Press, never complained about it.

  

They didn't like the content of articles and speech -- like some UN officials. So when the chance came to enter Inner City Press' office without consent, search papers and take photographs and pass them out, anonymously, to BuzzFeed, they did.

This is how the UN's Censorship Alliance works. Watch this site.

BuzzFeed Covers UN Raid on Inner City Press While Pam Falk of CBS & the UN's Censorship Alliance Took Pictures

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 22 -- Four days after the UN raided Inner City Press' office, went through papers and took photographs, BuzzFeed has covered the story.

  Tellingly, in terms of the old / big media resident correspondents at the UN who witnessed the raid but neither protested nor saw it as newsworthy, it is new media not in the UN's aura which ran this first outside coverage.

  While reporters from among others Al Jazeera and Tim Witcher of Agence France Presse walked right by as the raid took place, one stopped and took photographs: Pamela Falk of CBS News.

  Why did she take, and presumptively give to BuzzFeed, photographs from inside Inner City Press' office? She is the president of the UN Correspondents Association, which in 2012 tried to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN.

  If Falk, who Inner City Press witnessed taking pictures, is not the one who gave them to BuzzFeed, then the photos were taken by the UN and given to the anonymous “Concerned UN Reporter” who did.

  This too, would be improper: it would mean that the UN, while claiming they only did the search and photo session because of safety, had turned around and given the photos to UNCA, which has sought to have Inner City Press thrown out of the UN, as evidenced by documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act from Voice of America.

  The BuzzFeed piece, by Rosie Gray, mentions VOA's request. We further note that the FOIA documents show VOA's Margaret Besheer saying that Reuters and AFP supported the request, and the UNCA was “speaking with UN officials (very quietly)” about throwing out Inner City Press, before VOA's Steve Redisch made a formal request to the UN's Stephane Dujarric on June 20, 2012.

  Twenty minutes after BuzzFeed's article went online, Dujarric e-mailed Inner City Press to say:

“Matthew, You've written in ICP a number of times that the UN demands that Inner City Press 'remove the images and theYouTube video as a first step to addressing this matter.' From our end, we are not aware of any official that has asked for the removal of the video. DPI, nor anyone else that we know of, is asking for the removal of the video.”

  Inner City Press has twice written back to Dujarric with the name and phone numbers of the UN official who, on March 19, the morning after the raid, made the quoted request.

   Inner City Press has also twice now asked Dujarric why he or the UN would not answer if Inner City Press will remain accredited, and to state the UN's knowledge of how photographs taken during the non-consensual search of Inner City Press' office came into the possession of “Concerned UN Reporter.”

  As we've exposed, UNCA leaders have this year established at least four anonymous social media accounts to try to undermine Inner City Press and the Free UN Coalition for Access by, among other things, implying Inner City Press is funded by terrorists, Sri Lankan Tamil separatists, and by telling a country's UN Mission that Inner City Press sought contribution to investigate that mission. 

  Both are false, and for big media reporters to do this anonymously to a smaller competitor probably does not comport with their companies' policies.

  But UNCA's Pam Falk, at a February 22 on the recordmeeting with Dujarric present, told Inner City Press that her lawyers opine that writing to these media about their policies “might constitute a crime.”

 (At the same meeting, UNCA first vice president Louis Charbonneau of Reuters told Inner City Press "the fundamental problem is your website" and refused to answer questions about UN meeting with UN officials "very quietly" to get Inner City Press thrown out, click here for audio.)

  The BuzzFeed story summarizes that Inner City Press wrote to these media about the theft of quotes from a public press conference. 

  But the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations under Herve Ladsous, after Inner City Press repeatedly asked Ladsous about more than 100 rapes in Minova by the Congolese Army, held a PRIVATE briefing for AFP, Reuters and others - and did not inform Inner City Press, which had asked that questions.

  And no, it is not a crime to conclude and state “lap dog” -- here, it was and is true.

  Inner City Press also wrote to the big media bosses of UNCA Executive Committee members after it received deaththreats from extremist supporters of Sri Lanka's Rajapaksa government, threats which cite a proceeding UNCA had begun against Inner City Press. Amazingly, that process did not stop, despite the death threats it engendered. That's what UNCA has become.

  And that's why news can take place right in front of these UN scribes and they don't cover it. So be it: it is a new time, a new season. Watch this site.

Footnote: One reason for the office's condition on March 18, since cleaned, is that Inner City Press for a time rarely went there because of how unpleasant the UNCA leaders have made it, for example scrawling graffiti on FUNCA flyers on Inner City Press' office door. 

  But it would have been easy for the UN to contact Inner City Press, to enter the office or before searching it, by e-mail or cell phone, or visiting the UN Security Council stakeout, two minute away.

  Instead, they went in without notice and took photographs, which ended up on BuzzFeed. We're not particularly proud of a messy office, but frankly that's not the issue here.