Author of U.N. Book Defends Her Work
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
An NBC News correspondent who covers the United Nations vehemently denied yesterday any conflict of interest stemming from a grant she received from Ted Turner’s United Nations Foundation to help pay for a book she wrote about the world body.
Linda Fasulo, a freelance correspondent for NBC News, received an undisclosed sum of money from the United Nations Foundation in 2001 as a research grant for her book “An Insider’s Guide to the UN,” which was published by Yale University Press in January 2004. News of the grant, which was disclosed in Ms. Fasulo’s book, was first reported on the Web site of Accuracy in Media, a conservative watchdog group that critiques news organizations.
In an interview with The New York Sun, Ms. Fasulo said the grant from the United Nations Foundation, which allocates money to agencies that work with the United Nations and also serves as a public advocate for the world body, did not influence her 272 page book, which she wrote over the course of several years.
“They had no influence, no involvement in my book,” she said. She would not say how much money she received from the United Nations Foundation, which Ted Turner created in 1997 with $1 billion of his fortune. She would not disclose the sum of the grant, but said it was less than half of the payment she received from Yale University Press.
A spokeswoman for NBC News, Allison Gollust, said NBC News was aware of the grant prior to the book’s publication and that it does not see anything wrong with Ms. Fasulo accepting the money.
“Given all the facts surrounding the funding of the book and Linda’s freelance relationship with us,” Ms. Gollust said, “we have no concerns. We didn’t have any concerns when the book was published, and we don’t today.”
Ms. Fasulo, who has covered the United Nations for NBC News for the last 10 years, writes in her book that it is “hard to find anyone” who can mount a serious criticism of Secretary-General Annan. Ms. Fasulo said she would have omitted that judgment in light of the oil-for-food scandal, which is being investigated by an independent body led by Paul Volcker.
