Sunday, November 20, 2005

Shilling for the UN -- It Runs in the Family!

The center of a UN correspondent immigration-law scandal, whose hubby is a kneejerk defender of the UN in the media, has surfaced in what I suppose might be called the family business -- the United Nations!

Anora Mahmudova, wife of the Payola Pundit, the UN media trainer-correspondent Ian Williams, recently churned out a "news dispatch" for a UN website.

Cozy! Her hubby Williams is one of the most slavish defenders of the UN in the media. Even though he boasts on his website that he has conducted media training sessions for UN hacks, he still shamelessly postures as a "journalist" in the media and in speaking engagements.

Williams (the gorgeous creature to the left) just made an appearance at a university out in Michigan, where he was billed as a "UN journalist," to babble on about how the U.S. should be nicer to the UN. (I wonder if he ranted on about how the UN is too pro-Israel, as he did in one recent column.)

Mrs. Williams is famous in her own right. Earlier this year she was nailed by Front Page Magazine for working for UNCA despite not having proper immigration clearance. FrontPage and Accuracy in Media also described the pervasive practice of UN correspondents such as Williams getting UN work while covering the UN, in Williams' case for The Nation.

Sure enough, Mahmudova seems to be following in that famiy tradition. In the Maximsnews website and in various other places, including the official UN correspondent directory, Mahmudova is listed as "BBC World Central Asian Service correspondent in the US and at the United Nations."

So we seem to have a family tradition in the making here. Congratulations!