As
Circa
Misplaced
Bashir, Echo
of Non-Action
on Reuters
Spying for
UN
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, July
31 -- Circa,
based in San
Francisco,
calls itself
"news,
re-imagined."
In late May
with some
fanfare it
hired
Reuters
then social
media editor
Anthony DeRosa
as its editor
in
chief.
At
Inner City
Press we are
rooting for
new media, new
approaches. So
when Circa
reported today
on George
Clooney spying
on Sudan and
its
International
Criminal Court
indicted
president Omar
al Bashir, we
chimed in with
the fact that
Bashir met
with the head
of UN
Peacekeeping,
Herve Ladsous,
only this
month.
Inner
City Press
previously questioned
why Human
Rights watch
ignored this
UN
entanglement
to only focus
on Bashir's
trip to an HIV
/ AIDS
conference in
Nigeria.
HRW's Ken Roth
called
Nigerian
President
Goodluck
Jonathan a
"coward" for
not arresting
Bashir, but
said nothing
of the UN's
Ladsous
meeting with
him.
Soon
we learned
that Circa has
reported that
Bashir had
fled TO
Nigeria,
rather than the
other way
around.
And Circa reached out to
ask where
Bashir was
now. Well, back
in Sudan
(though he's
headed to Iran
on
August 4 for
Rouhani's
inauguration.)
The
mistake would
seem to
indicate a
dearth of
foreign policy
chops at
Circa; fine.
And they
replied that
they've now
updated their
story,
wherever it
is. But we
can't help
remembering:
when DeRosa
was at
Reuters,
ostensibly its
bridge to the
world of
social media,
he was
told of
problems.
He
was shown that
Reuters UN
bureau chief tried
to get
Inner City
Press
thrown
out of the UN.
He was shown
the connection
between
Reuters and
anonymous
social media
trolling
of Inner City
Press.
The Reuters UN
bureau chief,
Lou
Charbonneau,
has been shown
to have
essentially
spied for the
UN.
Charbonneau
gave the UN's
top Media
Accreditation
official an
internal
anti-Press
document
of the UN
Correspondents
Association,
three minutes
after he
promised that
it would stay
within UNCA.
Story
here, audio here,
document
here,
saying "you
didn't get
this from me."
Old media
Reuters big
wigs Stephen
J. Adler, Greg
McCune, Paul
Ingrassia and
Walden Siew
were all
contacted but
did nothing.
But
DeRosa
never did
anything about
this either,
despite the
"social media"
in his title.
Then one
thought that
when he left
the hegemon,
and
went hipster
at Circa, he
might do
something. But
no, nothing,
at least not
so far. Some
things,
however,
require
action.
It's
fine for a
start up
social news
company to not
know, really,
who the
president of
Sudan is, or
where and when
he traveled,
or why. But
where is this
all going? How
can double
standards like
on Ladsous be
reported,
given this?
Watch this
site.
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