Amid
ICP
Scoops, Big
Media UNCA
Kangaroo Court
Shrinks, Asks
Censorship
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
June 16 --
Reporting on
any beat like
the UN can be
competitive.
But there have
to be bounds:
large
competitors
should be
collude to
seek to expel
and deny
access to
smaller,
scrappier
media.
But
at the UN, big
media
representatives
on the UN
Correspondents
Association
Executive
Committee --
including from
Reuters,
Bloomberg,
AFP, Voice of
America
and Al Arabiya
-- led by
Giampaolo
Pioli of
Italy's
Poligrafici
Editoriale
Group, have
set up a five
member Board
of Examination
to
investigate
and seek to
expel the
smaller Inner
City Press.
On
the afternoon
of June 15, a
second of the
five members
resigned,
explicitly
because
he tried but
could not see
any mediated
solution. On
June 14, Pioli
used
UNCA's e-mail
list serve to
circulate
including
quickly to UN
diplomats
a letter
denouncing
Inner City
Press (without
letting it
reply),
spinning the
first
resignation.
And now?
Pioli
is demanding,
after Inner
City Press
reporting that
he rented his
apartment to
Palitha Kohona
and later
granted
Kohona's
request to
screen in the
UN
a war crimes
denial film by
his Sri Lankan
government,
that Inner
City Press
issue a
blanket
apology and
resign.
Most
troubling,
Pioli's
proposed
solution
involves him
dictating what
Inner City
Press
writes and
publishes
about in the
future. Pioli
has proposed,
orally and now
in writing,
that Inner
City Press
"guarantee
that [any]
future
coverage of
the UN" not
even mention
"other UN
correspondents"
- including,
of course,
him.
On
June 15, Inner
City Press obtained
and
exclusively
published a UN
Secretariat
memo
to the members
of the
Security
Council saying
that the UN
mission in
Syria would
"limit mobile
activities."
Because both
have
this year been
among those
making
uncredited use
of Inner City
Press
exclusive,
Inner City
Press sent
notice of its
scoop, before
11 pm,
to the highest
levels of
Reuters and
Bloomberg
News.
Reuters
UN
correspondent
Louis
Charbonneau
has told Inner
City Press
that he has
not credited
Inner City
Press for the
last year,
including in
his
role in
Reuters May 21
re-reporting
of Inner City
Press' March
28
scoop that
Jeffrey
Feltman would
come to head
the UN
Department of
Political
Affairs.
Bloomberg's
UN
correspondent
Flavia
Krause-Jackson
has repeatedly
said that even
if Inner City
Press
clearly
publishes a
story first,
then asks
about it,
Bloomberg can
use any answer
to Inner City
Press'
question as if
it were it
own,
without
credit.
(Ironically,
Charbonneau
and Krause-Jackson,
along with
AFP's Tim
Witcher and Pioli's
hand-picked
chairman
William M.
Reilly with
obvious
conflicts of
interest
are among the
people for
whom a blanket
apology from
Inner City
Press is
demanded in
Pioli's
proposal.)
So Inner City
Press noticed
Bloomberg's
Matthew
Winkler, and
Reuters
Stephen J.
Adler plus
three, before
11 pm on
June 15.
After
Inner City
Press at 6 pm
on June 16
asked the
spokesmen for
Ban Ki-moon
and Kofi
Annan -- both
formerly from
Reuters -- to
comment on the
eight hour
old scoop,
their response
was to have
UNSMIS General
Robert Mood
belatedly
issue a
statement with
the contents
of the notice
to the
Security
Council
that Inner
City Press had
already
reported and
published.
Both
Bloomberg and
Reuters
reported
Mood's
statement with
no background
or credit, as
did Voice of
America, first
by UN
correspondent
Margaret
Besheer then
by VOA "blog."
We'll have more
on this.
It
is UN
Correspondent
Association
president
Pioli and his
demands amid
all
this that are
causing the
most trouble,
including now
simultaneous
admonishments
and reneging
on renewing
Inner City
Press'
accreditation
by Ban
Ki-moon's
Media
Accreditation
and Liaison
Unit.
Forget
for a
moment Pioli
renting his
apartment to a
person he
ostensibly
covers
objectively,
then not
recusing
himself from
and
irregularly
granting
this person's
request to
screen inside
the UN a war
crimes denial
film.
Consider,
as Inner
City Press
reported on
and documented
last weekend,
Pioli's public
campaign
contributions
of at least
$950 in the
last election
cycle to
a politician
whom Pioli is
covering this
year. http://watchingamerica.com/News/156060/obama-vs-romney-a-challenge-over-taxes/
By any
standard, at
least in the
United States
if not at
Pioli's
Poligrafici
Editoriale
Group,
Quotidiano
Nazionale, La
Nazione, Il
Resto de
Carlino and Il
Giorno, this
is unethical.
And
yet, despite
all this, it
is Inner City
Press that is
under fire,
for reporting
facts, for
reporting
faster than
the wire
services, and
for example
for bringing
into the UN a
Nobel Peace
Prize winner
like Yemen's
Tawakkol
Karman rather
than, like
Pioli's UNCA,
an alleged war
criminal like
Sri Lanka
general
Shavendra
Silva, now an
adviser to
Ban Ki-moon.
Only at the UN
- watch this
site.