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

On False UN Exclusives, Reuters Mis-Googles, Raising to Adler Precluded?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, July 2 -- On June 30, five hours after Inner City Press exclusively reported the UK's flip-flop on opposing then supporting the removal from UN sanctions of London-based Saudi dissident Sa'ad Rashed Mohammad al-Faqih, Reuters Louis Charbonneau put up the same story, impermissibly labeling his as "exclusive."

Inner City Press immediately showed him that its story had been tweeted and in Google News five hours before, informing Charbonneau early Saturday evening that:

This morning, Saturday June 30, Inner City Press published and tweeted:

Al Qaeda Sanctions Comedy of Shifts, UK & Sa'ad al-Faqih, & Djiboutian

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, June 30 -- With most on the UN Security Council primarily concerned with Syria and the Action Group meeting in Geneva, other Council members on June 29 exclusively told Inner City Press of the strange case of Sa'ad Rashed Mohammad al-Faqih.

http://www.innercitypress.com/unsanc1faqih063012.html

It went right into Google News. [Run search by clicking here & look at earliest story - it's Inner City Press]

Then five hours later someone sends me this, expressing surprise:

Exclusive: Saudi dissident set to come off U.N. al Qaeda blacklist

By Louis Charbonneau

UNITED NATIONS | Sat Jun 30, 2012 5:08pm EDT

(Reuters) - A U.N. Security Council committee is set to remove Saudi dissident Saad al-Faqih from the United Nations' al Qaeda sanctions list this weekend if no council member demands that the 15-nation body intervene, U.N. diplomats said on Saturday.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/30/us-saudi-dissident-un-idUSBRE85T0L020120630

   But Charbonneau refused to make any change, would not remove the false "exclusive" label, offering this response:

Subject: RE: Hi, question re Sa'ad al-Faqih story in Google News this morning: http://www.innercitypress.com/unsanc1faqih063012.html
From: Louis Charbonneau [at] thomsonreuters.com
To Matthew Russell Lee [at] innercitypress.com
Date: Sat, Jun 30, 2012 at 7:10 PM

Matthew -

1) I found out about this yesterday and have been gathering info ever since.

2) Before I filed my story much earlier today I googled al-faqih and found nothing.

3) I didn't see your story til you emailed me. I just looked at it and saw that the main point of my story - his de-listing set for tomorrow - isn't even in yours!

4) You've got it all wrong about the de-listing. -Lou

  Of course, mislabeling a later-published story as "exclusive" has nothing to do with the later publisher claiming his analysis is more correct.

 (In this case, Reuters' seems to some little more than pro-UK propaganda, omitting the UK's temporary opposition to the ombudsperson's recommendation, and Charbonneau must not know how to use Google: multiple screen shots show Inner City Press' story up before noon, a good five hours before Reuters'. Or is that how long it takes a story to move through Reuters pipes? Even if so, the "exclusive" mis-label should have been removed before it was sold, for example to the Chicago Tribune).

  On the de-listing process, Inner City Press was and is well aware of the process set out in Resolution 1989 (2011) Paragraph 23, and covered it when enacted.

  At 5:30 pm on July 1 when multiple Council sources told Inner City Press al-Faqih was now off the list, Inner City Press tweeted it, but did not update its June 30 story, to keep uploading time and Reuters' mislabeling as "exclusive" clear. 

   Forty days ago, Reuters UN bureau chief Louis Charbonneau was credited on a story making unauthorized uncredited use of Inner City Press' March 28 exclusive report that Jeffrey Feltman would come to head the UN Department of Political Affairs.

   Inner City Press complained on May 21, and on May 25 along with four other members of the UN Correspondent Association's Executive Committee included Voice of America's Margaret Besheer and Agence France Presse's Timothy Witcher, Charbonneau signed a letter seeking to oust Inner City Press.

After many twists and turns, including Inner City Press' discovery and publication of Charbonneau's stealth complaint to the UN's Media Accreditation and Liaison Unit against Inner City Press, copied sent to Besheer, Witcher and UNCA President Giampaolo Pioli, Charbonneau on June 29 urged Inner City Press to stop battling, and certainly to stop writing to editors including his.

Inner City Press has asked Reuters Stephen J. Adler and three "ethics" colleagues about ThomsonReuters' policy on exclusives and crediting others' work, and how Charbonneau's policy and attempts to oust Inner City Press complies with the wire services' stated commitment to freedom of the press.

There has been no answer from Reuters, not even the provision of the company's policy, if any. (By contrast, it is understood that Bloomberg's Matthew Winkler, similarly petitioned, ordered his UN reporter to stop voting against Inner City Press.)

While asking Inner City Press on June 29 to even drop a Freedom of Information Act request concerning Voice of America's June 20 request that the UN's MALU "review" Inner City Press' accreditation status at the UN, Charbonneau on June 30 mis-labeled a story of his an exclusive, and refused to change it - he also repeated the claim on July 1.

  According to his June 29 bureaucratic threats, Charbonneau appears poised to use a nearly retired 50 year UN correspondent working under a state media bureau chief who has told Inner City Press to "respect authority" to issue a bogus "Board of Investigation" report against Inner City Press, without the Board having taken any evidence from Inner City Press or even told it what the charges or witnesses against it are, to gain leverage.

  But see legal notice to UNCA.

Charbonneau has since at least September 2011 opposed Inner City Press' request for guidance at the UN that correspondents should at least seek to provide credit to others' exclusives. He, Bloomberg's correspondent and others have argued it's fine to take others exclusives so long as the purloined story is not then labeled "exclusive."

Now, given Charbonneau's June 30 mislabeling as exclusive, no resolution is possible without such guidance.

Meanwhile apparently due to transmissions and invitations from UNCA, from Sri Lanka there continue not only articles (click here for July 1 government aligned Sunday Observer) but also physical threats.

It appears to some that Charbonneau, who has said he wants to head UNCA is even now using the organization to enable his unauthorized uncredited use of others' exclusives, and even labeling them as his own exclusives. Inner City Press held back this story, in order to tell UNCA's President this in advance. Now, it is modified and published. Watch this site.