Inner City Press -- Investigative Reporting From the Inner City to Wall Street to the United Nations

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 2 -- At the request of the representatives at the UN of seven big media corporations, a "Board of Examination" was formed late on June 1 to "investigate" Inner City Press with an eye to expelling it.

   The requesters include Louis Charbonneau of Reuters, Timothy Witcher of Agence France Presse, Flavia Krause-Jackson of Bloomberg, Talal Al-Haj of Al-Arabia and Margaret Besheer of Voice of America, plus UN Correspondents Association president Giampaolo Pioli.

  This comes after the first three have used, without credit, Inner City Press scoops, in the case of Reuters as a matter of policy since 2011, when Inner City Press at the UN was profiled in the New Yorker magazine.

  Pioli, who after that demanded that Inner City Press remove from the Internet an article mentioning that he took rent money from Sri Lanka's Permanent Representative to the UN and then arranged to screen in the UN a Sri Lankan government film denying war crimes, refused to recuse himself from the proceeding.

  Instead, Pioli named to his "Board of Examination" a follow Italian correspondent with an office next to his on what many call "Italian row" on the UN's press floor over the library: Anna Guaita of "Il Messaggero."

  Pioli also named to the Board of Examination the subordinate at Xinhua of one of the voters to investigate Inner City Press: Bill Reilly, formerly of the defunct wire service UPI, a correspondent not seen at a UN noon briefing stakeout or noon briefing for years.

  Pioli has been managing the witch hunt alongside  Lou Charbonneau of Reuters -- who as noted used without credit Inner City Press' March 28 hard-won exclusive that US official Jeffrey Feltman would come work at the UN-- unlike Foreign Policy's "The Cable" which gave credit.

  Then Charbonneau refused a request to answer why, while having filed a complaint against Inner City Press with the Media Accreditation Unit.

  Reuters has been asked up to the level of editor Stephen J. Adler if this, and Charbonneau's personal policy of not crediting Inner City Press, are appropriate -- so far without response. Bloomberg's Matthew Winkler has similarly been directly informed, without response.

  The involvement of US taxpayer funded Voice of America in this witch hunt against an independent investigative news site in the UN seems particularly noteworthy, and VoA's top editors have been asked to explain it.

  Beyond indictors Reuters, Bloomberg, AFP, which beyond Reuters on Feltman all stole Inner City Press' cocaine in the UN mail room exclusive story, we can now name Talal Al-Haq of Al-Arabiya, who without credit said June 1 his sources told him Darfur envoy Ibrahim Gambari is leaving.

  Inner City Press reported that a full ten days ago on May 21 and has fielded questions since. Maybe Al-Haj's sources learned of it in Inner City Press.

  Inner City Press asked to film Friday's meeting to pick the "Board of Examination" to expel it, but was denied the right. Censorship, apparently, can best be demanded off camera.

  At least four times, UNCA leadership have demanded that Inner City Press take material off the Internet: twice involving Sri Lanka and France.

  Both Missions appear behind this move against Inner City Press. The French Mission used Tim Witcher of Agence France Presse to seek an UNCA denunciation of Inner City Press in September 2011 for having shown that the French Mission didn't know that Nicolas Sarkozy at the last minute switched as his person atop UN Peacekeeping from Jerome Bonnafont, whose premature bragging Inner City Press also exposed, to his second choice, Herve Ladsous.

  Since then, Ladsous has on camera refused to answer Inner City Press' questions about cholera in Haiti and about Sri Lanka, saying "Well, Mister, I will start answering your questions when you stop insulting me and making malicious and insulting insinuations." Video here, at Minute 28:10.

 The UNCA Executive Committee did nothing to support the right to an answer at the UN, even omitting the entire issue from its minutes.

  Sri Lanka, whose Permanent Representative Palitha Kohona paid rent to Pioli, not only asked and got Pioli's permission to screen inside the UN a rebuttal to UK Channel 4's "Killing Fields" film documenting war crimes.

  It also wrote to Pioli and other Executive Committee members asking that they censure Inner City Press from reporting on General Shavendra Silva serving on Ban Ki-moon's Senior Advisory Group on Peacekeeping Operations.

  The UNCA Executive Committee not only did not support Inner City Press - it allowed itself to be cited in support of excluding ANY Press coverage of the SAG meetings to see if Silva attended.

  It seems obvious that this "Board of Examination," which Al-Haj demanded "investigate" Inner City Press' stories and so sources, must produce a written report that must be made public. Watch this site.