By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, October 30 -- This morning the International Monetary Fund said in response to a Press questions that the outlook is worsening in the three most Ebola impacted countries: Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.
The $130 million the IMF previously announced will not be enough. Clearly it is not only a humanitarian but also a business story.
So where is the big business media, for example Reuters, on this?
When US Ambassador Samantha Power went to West Africa, she took Reuters along to document each stage. (Here is some alternative coverage, here, here and here.) Upon her return, on October 31 Power will speak at Reuters in Times Square. That event will web-cast, but throughout the week Reuters has been selling its clients first access to quotes from business leaders.
But there is another side to Reuters. Even when it celebrated itself for getting a leaked copy of the most recent Somalia Eritrea sanctions report, it neglected to report in any way that one of the report's authors was forced to resign after writing a “regime change” plea on UN letterhead. (Inner City Press coverage here, then here and ehere.)
Reuters reminded silent on this development, clearly relevant to the sanctions story and report, even as it was discussed on camera by the UN spokesman and UK Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant.
Relevant to this silence by Reuters, and making it more problematic, is that the sanctions monitor who was forced to resign, Dinesh Mahtani, used to be in the employ of Reuters. This is how it works.
While trumpeting its (compensated) “exclusive” publication of leaked documents, Reuters has petitioned Google to block from its Search an anti-Press complaint it filed with the UN, calling it a personal communication and even copyrighted, under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Its filing, under oath, to Google is here. Both forms of censorship are opposed, at the UN, by the new Free UN Coalition for Access.
The attempt to get leaked documents blocked from Google's Search as "copyrighted" is a strange logic for a company that itself publishes unauthorized leaks. But who ever said Reuters is consistent?
Here's the notice for Power's presentation:
Please join us for a Reuters Newsmaker
Join Sir Harold Evans, Reuters Editor-at-Large, to hear a firsthand report from the front-lines of the Ebola crisis, and its impact on Africa and across the globe.
Speakers:
Samantha Power, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations and a member of President Obama’s Cabinet
Vandi Chidi Minah, Permanent Representative of Sierra Leone to the United Nations.
Sheri Fink, M.D., Ph.D. Author of “Five Days at Memorial”
Siddhartha Mukherjee, M.D., Ph.D. Associate Professor of Medicine, Columbia University
Sharon Begley, Senior Health & Science Correspondent, Reuters
MODERATOR Sir Harold Evans, Reuters Editor-at-Large, author of “The American Century”
Reuters does Ebola - and then sells it? Watch this site.
