www.innercitypress.com/un1newsmyanmar051908.html
UNITED NATIONS, May 19 -- As the death toll mounts in Myanmar, clamor grew for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to visit the country. On May 18 at 6 p.m., the UN News Service put online and e-mailed out a story that Ban's spokesperson Michele Montas "announced today that Mr. Ban is scheduled to arrive in Myanmar on Wednesday for a three-day visit" and quoting Ms. Montas, with a question mark, that "the whole purpose of the trip? is to accelerate the pace of disaster relief." This story was later taken down from the UN's web site. Sources tell Inner City Press that the Spokesperson's office complained to its affiliated UN News Service around 8:30 p.m. on Sunday night about the story. But did the UN News Service make up the quote it used? That seems unlikely.
At Monday's noon briefing, a hybrid journalist / blogger asked Ms. Montas why the story was taken down. "There was some uncertainty yesterday afternoon," she replied. "That's why they took the story down." Video here, from Minute 14:30. Montas added that the story was put back up on Monday because things are going as scheduled. The blogger, taking names in journalistic best practice, quoted a staffer in the Spokesperson's Office "that the UN took down the story because they were 'not in a position' to confirm whether the Secretary-General would be traveling to Myanmar."
The on-off-and-on again publication raises a number of questions, three of which follow. First, as above, if UN News Service published a story with Ms. Montas' unequivocal quote about the trip Sunday at 6 p.m., did the uncertainties arise between 6 and 8:30 p.m.?
Second, is it appropriate for the UN Secretariat to give exclusives -- in this case, a dubious exclusive -- to its own in-house News Service?
Third, is it within the bounds of journalistic, or even public relations, best practice to simply "take down" a story that has already been posted? Journalistic ethics aside, not only was it cached, other websites picked up and continued to run the UN News quote, with the question mark inside it, even after the UN took it down -- click here for Google search of the quote. Rather than uncerimoniously try to "take down" an already-posted article, most outlets would run a correction, and ideally explain the correction as well.
