Ignoring
Due Process
Before July 4,
UNCA Defends
Reuters False
Exclusives?
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
July 3 -- Five
days after the
UN
Correspondents
Association
was notified
that its
bubbling
"Board of
Examination"
investigating
Inner City
Press didn't
comply with
the rudiments
of
due process
under
applicable
law, on July 2
UNCA president
Giampaolo
nevertheless
summoned Inner
City Press to
a 3:30 pm
meeting on
July
3, the eve of
US
Independence
Day.
Inner
City Press
wrote back to
Pioli and the
other members
of the UNCA
executive
committee
"to
ask
you to state
what the
agenda of this
meeting would
be, consistent
with the
letter you
have
acknowledged
to me having
received on
June
28, which I am
again
attaching
hereto and
whose author I
am cc-ing.
While
you
and Lou
[Charbonneau
of Reuters] on
June 29 both
asked me to
withdraw my
journalist's
Freedom of
Information
Act request
regarding
the Voice of
America / UNCA
Treasurer
complaint
filed against
me with
Stephane
Dujarric of
the Department
of Public
Information,
you also
seemed to say
that despite
the letter,
you intended
to have the
'Board of
Examination'
you have
appointed
immanently
issues its
report.
As
I have argued,
and the letter
makes clear as
a matter of
law, the
Board of
Examination is
flaw, is not
impartial, and
has not
provided
me due
process.
I
am asking,
among other
things, if the
Board of
Examination or
its
'report' are
on the agenda
for the
meeting you
propose.
Additionally,
if
you or Lou
intend to
raise my
complaint that
Reuters at 5
pm on
June 30
labeled as its
own
"exclusive" a
story much
like
one Inner City
Press
published,
tweeted and
had in Google
News more
than five
hours previous
on the morning
of June 30,
I'd like to
make
clear that my
request to Lou
and Reuters
was and is
that the
mis-label of
'exclusive' be
removed.
Finally,
as
I'd think you
know, the
Security
Council has
consultations
starting at 3
pm on Tuesday
on UNSMIS (the
Syria observer
mission)
which I want
to cover, and
I'm sure
others do as
well.
As
I told you on
June 29, you
and the UNCA
executive
committee
should
closely read,
or seek
counsel on,
the June 28
letter and
respond to
its author,
who is cc-ed
on this
e-mail. I, and
he, will await
your
response."
As
has so often
happened with
Pioli's and
Charbonneau's
UNCA, there
has
been no
response, just
the looming
threat of a
kangaroo
court, in
this case to
enforce the
"right" to
mis-labeled
stories
already
published by
others as big
media
"exclusives."
After
Inner City
Press, which
delayed two
days writing
about
Charbonneau's
false
exclusive,
asked UNCA's
President to
belatedly
address the
issue, only to
be told it is
somehow not as
relevant as
Inner City
Press
withdrawing
its FOIA
request, it
published
about the
false
exclusive.
Less
than two hours
later Inner
City Press was
informed that
Charbonneau
had ranted,
"with a green
apple as green
as his shirt,"
that he would
revive all
charges
against Inner
City Press in
retaliation.
Contrary
to
all US
principles of
freedom of the
press, Pioli
has since
September 2011
demanded that
Inner City
Press remove
from the
Internet
factual
reports that
Pioli rented
one of his
dozen
apartments to
Palitha
Kohona, who
was then an
official of UN
which
Pioli covers.
Later,
Kohona became
the UN
Ambassador of
Sri Lanka, and
Pioli granted
Kohona's
request to
screen a
government
propaganda
film denying
war
crimes, Lies
Agreed To,
without
consulting
other elected
UNCA
executive
committee
members like
Inner City
Press.
After
seeking
appropriate
response from
Charbonneau,
Inner City
Press has
raised the
mis-labeling
as exclusive
to four
Reuters
editors:
Stephen
J. Adler,
Editor in
Chief; Greg
McCune, Ethics
&
Training;
Walden
Siew, Top News
Editor; and
Paul
Ingrassia,
Deputy Editor
in Chief.
Will
these
belatedly
respond, prior
to Pioli's and
Charbonneau's
3:30 pm
July 3 Kakfa
shadow
session? Watch
this site.
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