As
Gulf &
Western Media
UNCA Starts
Counterfeit of
ICP, UN Cheers
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
September 6 --
The same group
of insider
wire services
and
Gulf media
which tried to
get Inner City
Press thrown
out of the UN,
unsuccessfully
so far, have
this week set
up counterfeit
Inner City
Press social
media accounts
and
troll-followed
UN Missions,
agencies
and people who
follow the Free UN Coalition for Access, @FUNCA_info.
This
comes less
than a month
after @InnerCityPress
was
named one of
two
"Twitterati"
for UN
coverage by
Foreign Policy
magazine
(the only one
based at the
UN), and after
InnerCityPress.com
reported
on the
propagandistic
distribution
of questions
at the
missile-justifying
stakeout by US
Ambassador
Samantha Power
on September
5, here.
The
goal seems to
be to now
create
confusion
about which is
the real
@InnerCityPress
account.
It is not
hard: @InnerCityPress
has 6,725
followers and
UNCA-linked
counterfeit
for now less
than 25, while
mass-following
over 800. It's
a nasty piece
of business.
Still,
a
communications
chief of an
NGO targeted
by the UNCA
trolls was
fooled, and
snarked about
the account.
Other FUNCA
followers,
when
targeted,
automatically
followed back
the
counterfeit
account.
It's
a new low for
this gang of
scribes, who
hide behind
anonymous
accounts since
they work for
big media
companies like
Reuters
and
Agence
France Presse.
The
UN bureau
chiefs of
these two
companies, Louis
Charbonneau
and Tim
Witcher
respectively,
both tried to
get Inner City
Press thrown
out
of the UN, as
documented
by e-mails
obtained from
US government
agency Voice
of America
under the
Freedom of
Information
Act.
(VOA's
Broadcast Board
of Governors,
on which
Secretary of
State John
Kerry serves,
has started
stonewalling
on the follow-up
request, so an
appeal is
being filed
this week.)
Click
here
for VOA's
request
that Inner
City Press' UN
accreditation
be
"reviewed,"
saying it had
the support of
Reuters,
AFP
and Bloomberg
(which after a
letter to
Matthew
Winkler
purported to
drop out of
the campaign.)
Reuters'
Charbonneau
as first vice
president of
the UN
Correspondents
Association,
it is
documented,
passed an
internal
anti-Press
UNCA
document
to UN
accreditation
official
Stephane
Dujarric three
minutes
after
promising not
to do so.
Story
here, audio here,
document
here.
Once
the Voice of
America led
push was
exposed,
Dujarric
begrudgingly
extended Inner
City Press'
accreditation,
while
providing
pointers on
how to cover
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon and
his head of
peacekeeping Herve Ladsous.
Inner City
Press quit the
UNCA Executive
Committee, to
which it had
been elected,
and co-founded
the Free
UN
Coalition for
Access to
actually
protect
journalists. (Here
is a sample
project by a
FUNCA member
in Somaliland,
here.)
Only
this week, at
a UN noon
briefing, an
UNCA insider
tried to cut
off
the question
of a FUNCA
member
reporting for
Pacifica
Radio's WBAI
who asked
about chemical
weapons use by
rebels in
Syria. Click
here
for that.
In
setting up the
counterfeit
social media
account, the
UNCA insiders
stole the work
of FUNCA's
co-founder.
UNCA long ago
stopped
defending
journalists -
it tries to
get some
thrown out of
the UN, or to
steal
or destroy the
work of
others.
And the UN,
informed of
UNCA's
trolling back
in February --
here
is on the
record audio
of
UNCA's 2013
president
Pamela Falk,
ultimately
responsible
for all this
-- has done
nothing.
In fact, the UN's
Department of
Public
Information
has threatened
to
suspend or
withdraw
Inner City
Press' UN
accreditation
for hanging
a
sign of the
Free UN
Coalition for
Access on the
door of its
shared
office,
while UNCA has
five signs.
It's like
being in a
game in which
the referee
not only
permits one
side to
sleazily (anonymously)
attack the
other, but
even joins in
gleefully in
the attack.
Apparently
it's the law
of the jungle.
The
UNCA Executive
Committee
members who
have at a
minimum done
nothing to
stop this are,
as pictured
lunching with
Ban Ki-moon,
Denis
Fitzgerald of
Saudi Press
Agency;
Melissa Kent
of CBC;
Sylviane
Zehil of
L'Orient le
Jour; Tim
Witcher of
AFP; Ali
Barada of
An-Nahar;
Kahraman
Halicelik
of Turkish
Radio &
TV; Pamela S.
Falk of CBS;
Lou
Charbonneau of
Reuters;
Bouchra
Benyoussef of
Maghreb Arab
Press; Yasuomi
Sawa of
Kyodo News;
Masood Haider
of Dawn;
Unknown;
Zhenqiu Gu of
Xinhua;
Stephane
Dujarric of UN
DPI
This
counterfeit
trolling, this
stealing or
attempted
destruction of
journalists'
work and
attempts to
block
questions or
censor is
exactly was
the Free
UN Coalition
for Access
was formed and
will continue.
Watch this
site.
, 
