By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, August 5 -- This UN now tells different stories about the same event to its English and Spanish-speaking audiences. Some call it dishonest.
After Latin American foreign ministers from MERCOSUR raised US spying to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the UN News Center's Spanish version published an article that Bolivia's Ambassador Sacha Llorenti tweeted, and the Argentina Mission to the UN re-tweeted, here. The article emphasized what the ministers said, at a stakeout after meeting Ban.
But the UN's English language UN News Center's report focused on Ban, making him look committed although on the topic of US spying he was quoted in a meeting in Iceland as saying that Edward Snowden "misused" his position and information. The UN insisted it was a private meeting -- another form of saying different things to different audiences.
So did Ban Ki-moon raise in the afternoon to new US Ambassador Samantha Power the spying issue, that he heard about in the morning from foreign ministers Elías Jaua Milano of Venezuela, Antonio de Aguiar Patriota of Brazil, Héctor Marcos Timerman of Argentina, and Luis Almagro, Minister of Uruguay? (The UN's Media Alert did not mention Bolivia)
They spoke also about Argentina's sovereignty over the Malvinas Islands, the blockade of Cuba and, at Ban's request, Haiti.
One still wants to know if the Haiti discussion addressed cholera, which the UN brought to the island and then denied all claims about. This Inner City Press will be pursuing.
Footnote: At the stakeout, as another media began with a question, Pamela Falk of CBS shouted louder invoking the name of the UN Correspondents Association -- ironic, sinceit or at least its first vice president Louis Charbonneau of Reuters has been demonstrably shown to spy for the UN. Story here, Charbonneau & UNCA audio here, document here.
UNCA should not get the first question in a sit-down press conference, including because it gives it only to those who pay in money. But at a stakeout like Monday's it's even worse: a question was inappropriately grabbed for UNCA, and wasted on a softball.
Meanwhile the Department of Public Information, which gives UNCA this special status and attacks others for it, didn't have the video archive of the MERCOSUR stakeout online even as of 1:33 pm, then provided bad quality audio and did not respond to questions why from the new Free UN Coalition for Access. And so it goes at this UN.
