Faced with Poll About Bombing of UN in Algeria, UN
Was Diplomatic, Granted Interview to Pollster
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at
the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS, February 21 -- In the wake of the
deadly bombing of the United Nations in Algiers in December, Al Jazeera placed
online an interactive poll which asked if people supported or opposed the
bombing of the UN. The poll drew responses, not all of them negative.
At UN
Headquarters in New York, there was anger at Al Jazeera, a sense that the media
outlet had clearly transgressed accepted boundaries of professional journalism.
While one might have expected some public protest, instead the UN chose to
deploy a unique form of diplomacy. A high profile Al Jazeera correspondent was contacted. He in turn contacted the top management of Al Jazeera.
In short order, two things happened: the poll was removed from the Internet, and
Al Jazeera was granted an exclusive one-on-one interview with Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon, which the UN's own website heavily promoted.
Because of the surprising incongruity of
this UN response, Inner City Press on February 21 asked two UN communications
officials, one in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General and the other in
the spokesperson's office, to confirm or deny these basic assertions:
"Is it not the
case that after the December bombing of the UN in Algeria, one accredited media
outlet here ran an online poll if people agreed with the bombing? That the UN
asked, but only privately, for the media outlet to take it down? And, that once
it was taken down, the Secretary-General granted the media outlet an exclusive
interview?"
The UN's answer, which to be fair we run in full,
seems to go out of its way to put the poll, or management's responsibility, in
the best possible light, in order to distinguish it from other current and
apparently desired reactions to reporting the UN does not like:
No. The poll
was brought to our attention, as well as reports on other websites about the
poll. Those reports indicated that the Al-Jazeera Editor-in-Chief and management
were taken by surprise at the question asked by the poll and realized that it
was inappropriate. They admitted publicly (in these website reports) that it was
a mistake and said that they had removed it and disciplined the journalists
responsible.
The SG and his
team, recognizing that Al-Jazeera had acknowledged it's mistake, decided that
the Head of DPI would write a Letter to the Editor of Al-Jazeera, regretting
this series of events and underling the importance of telling the UN story to
the Arab world in order to develop a better understanding of what the UN does,
etc.
Subsequently,
Al-Jazeera requested an interview and it was granted.
Well-placed sources contest this account.
The second line asserts that the media organization's management itself took
action to take down the poll, before hearing from the UN. Inner City Press'
sources counter that the UN reached out to a former UN correspondent to try to
get the poll taken offline, that the disciplining of journalists emphasized by
the UN response may never have taken place, and that there was a quid-pro-quo
relation between the taking down of the poll and the granting of the interview.
At the Algeria bombing site, before poll and interview
Even the UN's version of the story is
contrary to current and apparently desired reactions to reporting the UN does
not like, with its reference to a letter from the Head of DPI, Kiyotaka Akasaka,
"regretting this series of events and underling the importance of telling the UN
story." Other media outlets accused by UN management of having "clearly
transgressed accepted boundaries of professional journalism" wonder when the
gentle "regretting" of events and "underlining of the importance of telling the
UN story" starts -- and when the interview will be scheduled.
Footnote: Inner City Press is informed that on
February 22, Ban Ki-moon is scheduled for an "informal" lunch interview in
midtown with Time magazine. The sit-down was previously canceled, as Ban is wont
to do, the first time because he had to rush to meet with Tony Blair. For
February 22, Time asked if one of its reporters could travel with Ban by car
from the UN, for some private interview time, but was told that this raised
security concerns. Traveling with Ban, it is said, will be Choi Soung-ah and
Michele Montas of the Spokesperson's office, and deputy chief of staff Kim Won-soo.
It is not known if the Time conglomerate has recently published any offensive
poll or other possibly offensive material. Bon appetit!
* * *
These reports are
usually also available through
Google News and on Lexis-Nexis.
Click
here for a
Reuters
AlertNet piece by this correspondent about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army.
Click
here
for an earlier
Reuters AlertNet
piece about the Somali National Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's
$200,000 contribution from an undefined trust fund.
Video
Analysis here
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