UNITED
NATIONS, May
26 -- So one
of the
columnists
Reuters
collects like
pets, Jack
Shafer, thinks
that secret
subpoenas to
look at
journalists
e-mails are
not a problem.
Maybe
Shafer's piece
is just to be
contrarian, to
put an
intellectual
gloss
on a company,
Thomson
Reuters, which
is mostly
about servicing
high
frequency
stock traders.
But
contempt for
independent
free press can
be found in
"news"
parts of
Reuters more
faceless than
Shafer. In
2012, Reuters
UN
bureau chief
Louis
Charbonneau repeatedly
tried
to get the UN to
throw out
Inner City
Press, after a
controversy
about the
uncredited
use of stories
first reported
by Inner City
Press.
(Charbonneau
at an on the
record meeting
was asked to
explain, but refused
to, audio here.)
Turns
out Reuters
ties
compensation
to a
reporter's
number of
labeled
exclusives,
even
if the label
is inaccurate.
Inner
City Press
wrote to
Reuters'
editor Stephen
Adler and
showed that
the
proceeding
Reuters'
Charbonneau had
started
was leading to
death
threats from
extremist
supporters of
Sri Lanka's
government.
Adler
and three
other top
executives did
nothing;
Charbonneau
ramped up his
campaign,
including
telling the UN
he might leave
if they didn't
throw Inner
City Press
out, a real
threat given
the "service"
Reuters'
Charbonneau
provides to
the UN and
certain
Western
missions.
In
2013, Inner
City Press
showed Adler
that
Charbonneau's
subordinate
Michelle
Nichols,
perhaps on his
behalf, was
linked to an
anonymous
social media
account which
among other
things
continued the
false
accusation of
funding by the
defunct Tamil
Tigers.
Adler
did
nothing; nor
did other
Reuters
officials made
aware of it,
including
but not
limited to
Greg McCune,
Paul Ingrassia
and Walden
Siew.
This
social media
trolling has
continued,
including this
Memorial Day
weekend.
Meanwhile
the UN
Correspondents
Association's
Executive
Committee, on
which
Charbonneau is
First Vice
President, not
only has
done nothing
about
anti-press
moves in UN,
from the proposed
elimination
of media
workspace in
front of the
Security
Council to
the installing
of a UN
surveillance
camera over
the entrance
to the
office of the
Press and
the new Free
UN Coalition
for Access.
And
now
this.
In
fact, the
trolling
social media
accounts now
claim that the
lack of
fight back to
the
elimination of
media
workspace is
tied to the
Reuters
promoted
fantasy of
funding by a
defunct
terrorist
group.
This is
Reuters. Watch
this site.
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