As
Ban's
Spokesman Blames UN Radio for Question, Other Answers Not Public
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?”
Ban & spox, Ban answers on Khartoum, UN reform & Sri Lanka not
shown
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.
* * *
After
One Candidate Race, Ban Ki-moon Takes Last Question from UN In-House
Radio and not on Sudan:
“Propaganda”
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
June 21 -- After Ban Ki-moon won a one candidate election as
UN Secretary General for the next five years, he came to take
questions from the press. There are unanswered questions swirling
about the inaction in Sudan of UN peacekeepers under Ban's command,
and about Ban's own inaction on war crimes in Sri Lanka.
But
with time
limited, Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky whispered in the ear of the
UN TV sound man, pointing out where to give the last question.
It was
to UN Radio, the UN's own radio service, and the question was what
Ban Ki-moon will do with the world's youth. Ban answered, then in
the face of a request for a “question on Sudan,” Nesirky, Ban and
two South Korean advisers left the UN, presumably to celebrate.
Afterward
a number
of reporters said it was improper to give one of the few questions to
Ban to the UN's own in-house “propaganda” station, as one
reporter called it, “under Ban's UN.”
Ban
Ki-moon's big
day began Tuesday with a meeting with Kim Sung-hwan the Foreign
Minister of South Korea, the job Ban used to have. Then there was a
billed media availability at 9:30 am about sustainable sanitation.
Inner City
Press attended, ready to ask about Ban's Panel of Experts'
finding that UN peacekeepers' practices in Mirebalais, Haiti hadn't
stopped feces from entering drinking water. But no questions were
taken.
At
noon Inner City
Press asked Ban's spokesman Nesirky, who said there had been no
meeting, only the 9:30 event, four seats and a rostrum. Inner City
Press asked about the Sri Lanka Killing Fields documentary -- Nesirky
said Ban hasn't seen it, but that it's incorrect -- and then about
GRULAC, the Latin American and Caribbean states group.
A
GRULAC member has
shown Inner City Press notes from Ban's meeting with GRULAC, as which
the “invisibility” of Latin America and the Caribbean in Ban's
first term was critiqued. Inner City Press asked Nesirky what is
Ban's response to the critique.
“The immediate
response is he's just come back from a long trip to four countries
in Latin America,” Nesirky said.
Inner
City Press
asked, so the trip was his response to the critique?
“That's
extremely
frivolous,” said Nesirky, later in the day to give the UN's own
in-house radio station the last question, rather than take a chance
on Ban having to response to actual critiques.
“Trips take a
long
time to plan," Nesirky added.
But
of course the
problem is more than trips. Ban may be going to the South Sudan
independence ceremony on July 9, but has yet to address the inaction
of UN peacekeepers under his command in Abyei and Southern Kordofan,
much less questions about Darfur.
In
between the
questionless press (non) availability at 9:30 and this noon briefing,
Ban met with his corporate Global Compact. An attendee said he left
early, saying there's “something in the General Assembly... about
my future,” to much laughter.
Then
as the
speeches began, with Bolivia having to give the speech for GRULAC,
one of Ban's spokespeople pointedly asked Inner City Press, “Happy
day, isn't it?” Reporters are not supposed to say (but only show).
Watch this site.
* * *
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