Over the last week, the media have tirelessly echoed a false report by Washington Times senior White House correspondent Bill Sammon that the United Nations humanitarian aid chief called a U.S. pledge of $15 million in aid to tsunami victims 'stingy.' In fact, U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs Jan Egeland applied the 'stingy' label to 'rich countries,' 'donor countries,' and 'Western countries' in general, never singling out the United States. Moreover, his remark specifically addressed foreign aid budgets not related to the tsunami. In explaining why he expected rich countries to contribute money for tsunami aid, Egeland said that their regular foreign aid allocations were too 'stingy' to cope with such an extraordinary disaster.

Media echoed false claim that U.N. official cal ... [Media Matters for America]