Spinning UN Eviction,
Reuters Told NYT It Was OK,
Defended Ng's Bribery Conduit
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Series,
Video
I,
II
UNITED NATIONS,
March 2 –
Weeks after the UN's eviction,
the guy I'd contacted at the
New York Times finally decided
to come check it out. First
I'd tried with the New Yorker
writer who'd written a “Talk
of the Town” about Inner City
Press in 2011, and asked him
to cover the eviction. We
don't do that, he'd said,
suggesting this Corey
Kilgannon at the Times. And
now Corey was coming - but I
couldn't sign him in.
I went down to wait out
on First Avenue, then called a
friend of mine when Corey
showed up. My friend signed
Corey in and we raced up to
the Press Briefing Room, just
before the noon briefing
started. But Media
Accreditation wouldn't let
Corey in. He had his New York
City press pass, but the UN
likes to keep things in-house.
I went in first
and started asking questions,
leaving the corruption ones
for last. Half way through the
briefing, or what seemed like
half way since I didn't know
when it would end, I heard a
commotion in the back. They
had let Corey in, and scribes
turned to look him up and
down, friend or foe, censor or
rebel. I guessed we'd find
out.
I got to my corruption
question, a new indictment
against an official of Ng Lap
Seng's South South News, and
Dujarric said he'd had enough
and walked out. You saw that?
I asked Corey. He nodded. “I'm
going to ask him about it,”
Corey said.
After the briefing I
showed him how my pass
wouldn't work on the turnstile
to the second floor. I have to
have a minder, I told him. We
went back to Media
Accreditation. We want to go
see the second floor, I said.
I was also going to show Corey
the windowless fourth floor
bullpen I was working from,
but we ran into a guy who'd
said he wanted to help. He
could tell you more, I said to
Corey. The guy agreed to talk
with Corey in his cubicle. I
stood outside - and saw when
various of the United Nations
Correspondents Association
scribes, from Voice of America
to Reuters to Pioli himself,
came sniffing around. They
invited Corey to meet with
them in the other, back wing
of the third floor. I sat on
the floor by the escalator,
charging my laptop and
writing. The die was cast.
More than an hour later
Corey came out shaking his
head. Those people really
don't like you, he said. I'm
not saying I'm not going to
write the story. I'm just
saying it's going to be
different than I thought it
would be.
Different can be good,
I said. My friend predicted
Corey would end up writing
nothing. “They'll lobby the
Times,” he said. “Or it will
come out like a freak show.”
Or, I thought, both.
The freak show had begun. At
the next day's noon briefing,
the scribes filled the front
row and they had a plan. Lou
Charbonneau started it: “Since
you say you're reviewing South
South News,” he asked Ban's
Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq,
always eager to be liked,
“will you be reviewing the
finances of others accredited
or seeking accreditation as
media here?”
Yeah, Lou's predecessor
as Reuters bureau chief Evelyn
Leopold said, what about
bribery of media here?
They had been tweeting
that, that I covered the
Tamil, or Western Sahara,
because someone was paying me.
Who? I told them I liked
underdogs, even those under
sanctions.
Well, Farhan said,
catching their drift, we are
going to review things in a
new way. So this was where it
was going: use exposure of UN
corruption as the pretext to
go after those who expose and
report about it.
I raised my hand but
Farhan wouldn't call on me. I
started tweeting with one
hand, reaching into my
backpack with another. Finally
I held it up, the UN
Correspondents Association
ball sponsor book. “So this,”
I said, flipping it open to
the UNCA pages bought by South
South News, next to ENI oil
and a purse company, “have you
checked if it were in return
for a photograph with Ban
Ki-moon?”
Farhan cut in: “The
Secretary General takes
photographs with a lot of
people.”
“A lot of
indicted people?” I
asked. This briefing is
over, Farhan said. I went
straight to the focus booth,
first screamed some words that
began with F, then began
writing. Tomorrow they were
supposed to evict my office. I
waited for the video to go
online, went down to the video
archive shop in the basement
and started editing. Would
those in Congress or their
staffers understand?
***
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