UN
Censors Give
Gold To Their
Own VP, Take
Samsung TV
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
December 6 --
What kind of
correspondents'
association
gives
its "Gold"
journalism
award to its
own first vice
president? One
at the UN, of
course, where
conflicts of
interest are
increasingly
shrugged off
or censored.
The United
Nations
Correspondents
Association on
December 5
announced it
is giving a
Gold award to
its outgoing
first vice president
Louis Charbonneau,
Reuters bureau
chief and part
time UN spy,
click here for
that.
Spying aside,
isn't this a
conflict of
interest? To
give your Gold
award to your
own Number Two
official?
Meanwhile UNCA
is relying on
the UN of Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon to
assure it that
it is not a
conflict of
interest to
accept a free
television
from Samsung.
Earlier
this
week, Inner
City Press reported on
new conflicts
of interest,
following up
on one in 2011
in which the president
of UNCA,
having rented
one of his
apartments to
the Ambassador
of Sri Lanka
agreed to
screen the Sri
Lankan
government's
film denying
war crimes
inside the UN.
After
Inner City
Press reported
that in 2011,
UNCA Executive
Committee
insiders demanded
that the
factual
article be
taken off the
Internet
and when Inner
City Press
refused, tried
to throw it
out of the
UNCA
board then out
of the UN.
This last is
provided by documents
obtained
under the
Freedom of
Information
Act from Voice
of America,
which
claimed support
from Agence
France Presse
and Reuters'
Louis
Charbonneau.
Now
UNCA,
re-christened
the UN
Censorship
Alliance, has
announced its
"Gold" award
to this same
Charbonneau,
who wrote to
the
private e-mail
address of the
UN's
accreditation
boss that if
Inner
City Press
were not
thrown out he
would leave
the UN (and no
longer
perform his spying
functions).
You
can't make
this stuff up
-- the document
is here, with
Charbonneau's
"you didn't
get this from
me" and
the audio
of Charbonneau
promising the
document would
stay within
UNCA here
-- it
is truly
Gold.
The
cursory
minutes of
UNCA's recent
General
Meeting, held
ignoring a
Security
Council
meeting about
the Central
African
Republic,
focused
on why it is
OK for them to
accept the
free TV from
Samsung (it's
"not
from a
Mission," they
claim -- and
even worse, rely
on the UN
telling them
there is no
conflict of
interest).
The problem
here is that
the UN props
up its UN Censorship
Alliance,
giving it automatic
first
questions and
a big clubhouse,
then
UNCA "leaders"
lobby the UN
to try to get
investigative
press
troublesome to
both thrown
out. Any
correspondents'
association
worthy of the
name would
have a rule of
not seeking to
get reporters
thrown out.
For this UNCA
that is not
even on the
horizon: just
a free TV from
Samsung, one
wonders why.
The 2013
president
Pamela Falk is
running
unopposed for
a second term
(which rarely
happened in
the
past); she was
told on
the record
in February
2013 that her
team has
started
multiple
anonymous
troll social
media accounts
impersonating
first the new
Free
UN Coalition
for Access (yes,
@FUNCA_info)
then
Inner City
Press. Audio
here and here
and here.
This anonymous
social media
trolling
picked up on
November 27,
the day before
Thanksgiving.
Falk's
main
concern was
that she
herself not be
named.
What's next -
why
isn't she
giving herself
a Gold award?
Perhaps that is
next. Watch
this site.
, 
