American Media Dodging U.N. Surveillance Story

An employee at England's top-secret Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) has been arrested following the London Observer's publication of a leaked U.S. National Security Agency memorandum written by a top official calling for "aggressive surveillance" of UN Security Council delegations. The story received much media attention worldwide, but the US media has shown little interest in the story. Media Beat columnist Normon Solomon writes, "Several days after the 'embarrassing disclosure,' not a word about it had appeared in America's supposed paper of record. The New York Times -- the single most influential media outlet in the United States -- still had not printed anything about the story. How could that be? 'Well, it's not that we haven't been interested,' New York Times deputy foreign editor Alison Smale said on the evening of March 5, nearly 96 hours after the Observer broke the story. 'We could get no confirmation or comment' on the memo from U.S. officials."