As
Feltman Scoop
Stolen by
Reuters, HQ
Silent, UN
Reporter Says
It's Policy
By
Matthew
Russell Lee,
Media Analysis
UNITED
NATIONS,
May 23 -- On March 28,
Inner City
Press exclusively
reported
that US
official
Jeffrey
Feltman would
replaced Lynn
Pascoe as the
head of the UN
Department of
Political
Affairs. Click here
to see that
story.
After
Reuters
stole the
story on May
21, unlike
for example Foreign
Policy which
gave
credit,
Inner City
Press e-mailed
that wire
service's UN
reporter
Louis
Charbonneau
and then, receiving
no response,
sought
to post a
comment on
the story on
the
Reuters.com
website. While
other
non-substantive
comments were
allowed by
Reuters, this
one was not.
So
Inner City
Press for two
days sought to
reach Reuters
editors or
officials. The
links to the
two editors on
the
triple-bylined
story
led only to
their "blogs."
(The three bylined reporters
were "Arshad
Mohammed,
Warren Strobel
and Louis
Charbonneau;
Editing by
Vicki Allen
and Eric
Beech.)
Reuters'
"Director
of Global
Communications"
Barb Burg was
reachable
only through a
secretary, who
a day later
said to e-mail
the two
editors. One
was "out of
the office;"
the other has
yet to
respond.
Meanwhile
it
is understood
that Reuter's
UN
Correspondent
Lou
Charbonneau
has
adopted a
policy of NOT
crediting
Inner City
Press,
allegedly
based
on another
report more
than a year
ago in which
after Reuters'
Charbonneau
reported he
has "seen" a
report, Inner
City
Press posted
the whole
report on
line.
Now to remove
any pretext,
Inner City
Press has
immediately
after
Charbonneau's
belated
complaint
removed from
the Internet
both the story
and the
report.
Charbonneau
earlier
this month,
after Inner
City Press
asked Kosovo's
Enver Hoxhaj
about his
country's
support of
Syria, took
the answers as
a
stand-alone
story with no
credit.
(Charbonneau
has asked
about
Kosovo's
Brussels
office, a
non-story).
Compare UN
video to Charbonneau's
Reuters
"story."
It
should be
noted that
other
exclusives
have been
stolen at the
UN.
Earlier this
year Inner
City Press reported that
14 kilograms
of
cocaine were
found in the
UN mail room
and covered up.
After writing
the story,
Inner City
Press asked
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's
spokesman
Martin Nesirky
about it at
the next noon
briefing. He
had
no answer, but
later
in the day
organized a 6
pm stakeout by
UN
Security chief
Gregory Starr
to "rebut" the
charges.
The
UN
correspondents
of Reuters, Bloomberg
(changing 14
kilos to "35
pounds"),
AFP
(changing to
"35.5 pounds")
Agence
France Presse
(whose
Tim Witcher
was previously
used to
harass Inner
City Press by
the
French Mission
to the UN,
after Inner
City Press published an
expose
on France's
use of the UN
in Cote
d'Ivoire,
and the last
minute
switch from
Jerome
Bonnafont to
Herve "The
Drone"
Ladsous
for DPKO),
Mexican media
and others
showed up,
many
complaining,
then wrote
stories which
other than the
Mexican media
gave no credit
to Inner City
Press'
underlying
exclusive.
The defense
appears to be
that once a
press
availability
is scheduled,
even if clear
in response to
anther
media's
exclusive, no
credit need be
given. Is this
journalism? Or
a
club of
corporate
insiders?
Watch this
site.
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