UN Secretary General Kofi Annan (AP photo)

CNN.com leaves out Annan's plea for US accountability

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UN Secretary General Kofi Annan gave what may be his last speech as UN head from the Truman Presidential Museum and Library in Independence, Missouri on Monday (12/11/06). CNN.com covered sections of his speech having to do with security and the rule of law, but did not reference or quote from the section on global accountability.

In that section, Annan said "governments must be accountable for their actions in the international arena" which "can often have a decisive effect on the lives of people in other states". He went on to say that the actions of powerful states "have the greatest impact on others".

The section ended with some positive examples of international cooperation, but the initial portion seemed aimed squarely at the US Administration's foreign policy, and perhaps more specifically at the US war in Iraq, which Annan previously called illegal.

Annan was careful with his wording, but may have been trying to foster discussion about holding the US to account internationally for a possibly illegal war. Such discussions are rarely heard in US major media outlets, and CNN is no exception.

Less significantly, CNN.com appeared to have cribbed its story title from the BBC, which posted the story 'Annan chides US in final speech' to its website on Monday. CNN posted its similarly titled 'Annan chides U.S. in farewell speech' story about thirty minutes later.

But CNN.com only snatched the title. The BBC's third sentence in, which read "Mr Annan said states had to be accountable and the UN was the only body where this could be assured," was not copied, paraphrased, or otherwise referenced.


cnnX editorial

CNN.com may be feeling the pinch of the downsizing trend in newsrooms across the country, as media conglomerates are attempting to increase profits at the expense of news gathering. It's easier to snag a title from someone else than to think one up yourself. And for a 24-hour news network with an ever-evolving website, it may be difficult to keep up, never mind be original.

It's also simple to cut and paste quotations from other sources. Not so simple to sit through a long speech taking notes. And this has consequences.

CNN.com quoted Secretary Annan as saying "You Americans did so much, in the last century to build an effective multilateral system..." But Annan never said those words, not exactly. He was either reading from a different draft of his speech than the one provided to the media, or he changed his wording on the spot.

In either case, CNN didn't rely on the careful notes from a sharp reporter or on an independent transcription of his speech. They took the easier (and cheaper) route: probably just copying the text from a draft of the speech on the UN's website.

A Google search shows that the New York Times, Reuters, and Al Jazeera did the same thing. All of them got his wording exactly the same, and all were wrong. cnnX has not found any news source who quoted Annan correctly at this point in his speech.

Annan actually said, "Americans did so much, you did so much in the last century to build and effective multilateral system..." Definitely different, but it has more or less the same meaning. The point is that it illustrates how a decreasing supply of mainstream journalists are depending more and more on each other and second-hand sources for information.

Harmlessly misquoting the UN Secretary General is one thing, but ignoring a key portion of his speech is quite another. Both could be explained by careless reporting from a rushed journalist, but there are other pressures on journalists today than time.

cnnX has documented enough slants, omissions, and mischaracterizations in CNN's reporting over the years to expose a fairly significant western bias, which may in fact reflect the world view of CNN's executives. (Read our archives and sort by 'Slant' to see for yourself). And like most professions, keeping superiors happy is usually good for job security.

We sincerely hope that CNN.com's writers and editors were just rushing to meet a deadline when they neglected to cover Annan's plea for global accountability, but unfortunately, there's probably more to it than that.

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