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Syria
Report
Misleadingly
"Obtained" By
Reuters, Which
Pays for Exclusives
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, June
20 -- After the
UN released
its Syria aid
access report
in the same
murky,
pre-spun way
on June 20 as it did
on April 23,
and then
on May 22,
Reuters nevertheless
said it "obtained"
the report, in
a story it labeled
as "exclusive."
But what does
that mean?
Let's explain:
just before 6
pm on June 20,
the UN
Spokesperson's
Office
announced over
its "squawk"
system to
correspondents
still in the
building that
the report had
been
circulated.
This meant it
had been
placed in
piece of
furniture in
the
Spokesperson's
Office which
has sat empty
for many days
now.
An hour and a
half later,
Reuters said
it "obtained"
the report.
What - in the
same way that
a person
watching
television "obtains"
its content?
One problem, previously
reported
by Inner City
Press, is that
Reuters
bases
compensation
on claims to
exclusively,
false or not
-- click here
for that.
The current Reuters
bureau chief
at the UN
Louis
Charbonneau, a
major come-down
from Patrick
Worsnip, has
tried to get
other media
thrown out of
the UN then falsely
claimed
copyright to
his complaints
to the UN,
filing here,
background
here with
Electronic
Frontier
Foundation
criticism of
Reuters' move.
In terms of
the UN
Spokesperson's
duty to answer
questions,
there was by
closure on
June 20 no
answer to
Inner City
Press' request
to confirm or
deny Ban
Ki-moon was
handed legal
papers about
the
introduction
of cholera
into Haiti
as he
entered the
Asia Society,
Inner City
Press coverage
here.
* * *
These
reports
are
usually also available through Google
News and on Lexis-Nexis.
Click here
for Sept 26, 2011 New Yorker on Inner City
Press at UN
Click
for
BloggingHeads.tv re Libya, Sri Lanka, UN
Corruption
Feedback:
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