BBG Watch Commentary
A typo in the lead sentence in Voice of America’s lead news story, and a major news story today about what appears to be deployment of Russian troops in eastern Ukraine, has not been corrected or updated for hours. VOA is still not reporting that the United Nations Security Council has scheduled an emergency meeting today on the presence of Russian troops in southeastern Ukraine. The scheduled meeting of the UN Security Council has been reported by BBC, DW, RFE/RL and other international media. Obviously, no one at VOA looks at their own website during the August vacation season.
The VOA news story has also not been updated for a few hours. As of 1:30 PM EDT, VOA has not yet reported on reactions to the Russian troops deployment in Ukraine from German Chancellor Angela Merkel (reported by BBC and DW), French President Francois Hollande (reported by BBC and RFI), British Prime Minister David Cameron (reported by Al Jazeera and BBC), Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski (reported by BBC), Spokesman for UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon (reported by DW), and other world leaders. These reports have been online on other international media outlets for many hours.
While failing to report on these international reactions, VOA reposted a tweet from the Russian Foreign Ministry denying that Russian troops are on the Ukrainian territory.
At 11:30 AM EDT, the time stamp on the VOA report about Ukraine says that the story was last updated at 9:21 AM EDT. (The VOA report was eventually slightly changed at about 12:40 PM EDT and the typo was corrected, but the VOA news story was not updated with any significant new information. As of 12 noon EDT, the VOA Ukraine news report still has not been updated with new information and the typo has not been corrected.)
BBC updated its Ukraine news report at 10:40 AM EDT and several times later. BBC reported a few hours ago that the United Nations Security Council is to hold an emergency meeting in New York on Thursday at 18:00 GMT to discuss the crisis.
Germany’s Deutsche Welle (DW) has also reported the announcement of the UN Security Council meeting.
VOA has not yet reported on the scheduled UN Security Council meeting.
This may be the most significant news story of the year and yet neither VOA director nor VOA executive editor appear to be looking at this news report and making sure it is corrected and updated. VOA has not updated its Ukraine-Russia news report for nearly three hours. BBC has posted another update in its Ukraine-Russia news report at 11:33 AM EDT.
As of 12:20 PM EDT, the VOA news story still has not been updated or corrected.
UPDATE: At about 12:40 PM EDT, after many hours VOA corrected the typo in its Ukraine-Russia news story.
However, as of 1:00 PM EDT VOA is still not reporting that the UN Security Council is to hold an emergency meeting Thursday on the Ukraine crisis. The UNSC meeting announcement was reported hours ago by BBC, DW and other media.
VOA has also not reported the following statement from the UN, which was reported by DW.
DW: Spokesman for UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon calls reports of firing in Ukraine a “dangerous escalation.” “The international community cannot allow the situation to escalate further nor can a continuation be allowed of the violence and destruction that the conflict has wrought in eastern Ukraine,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters.
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