By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, June 22 -- Just after Ban Ki-moon won his one-candidate race for five more years as UN Secretary General, when he came to the General Assembly stakeout on June 21 his final question was given to the UN's own in-house radio station.
The question was, “hi Secretary-General, it is nice to see you again. How do you feel on this historic day and what is the message you have to the young people of the world?”
Ban smiled and gave his longest answer at the stakeout, transcribed and put online by the UN.
The next Inner City Press asked Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky, “at that press encounter yesterday, it seemed that the question was granted by yourself to UN Radio, which is owned by the UN, so it’s sort of an in-house station. Is that generally accepted?”
Nesirky, prepared for the question, said that “No, it is not generally accepted, and it shouldn’t have happened. And UN Radio staff have been reminded of what the rules are. The rules are quite clear: it is for people with press badges to ask questions.”
Some wondered about blaming the hapless UN Radio reporter, when it was Ban's spokesman who for whatever reason devoted the last question to her, and has left the seemingly scripted answer online.
Later on June 22 this problem was addressed by Ban taking, but the UN apparently not transcribing, by-invitation only questions, about Kashmir, Japanese engineers to South Sudan and as reported, Syria.
Ban was asked, perhaps as wishful thinking, about “speculation in Korea that you are a potential candidate for the President. Are you going to run for the presidency of the country?”
Twenty hours later, unlike his stage-managed stakeout including the child question from UN Radio, this Ban Q&A has not been transcribed and put online by the UN, even in its “off the cuff” section. To some this appeared to be a new media strategy, implemented on the first two days of Ban's new term:
Take public questions from the UN's own media and put the answers online; take questions in private from hand-selected journalists and don't put any transcript online. We'll see.
