UN mourns passing of veteran Reuters reporter

A United Nations spokesman today paid tribute to the late Anthony Goodman, a veteran Reuters news reporter who covered the world body for 20 of his 40 years with the agency and died in New York City over the weekend.

Anthony Goodman, 74, “was a journalist’s journalist and a Spokesman’s journalist, as he always protected his sources,” Stephane Dujarric told the daily briefing at UN Headquarters.

Mr. Goodman “was quiet, self-effacing, gentlemanly and considerate to the nth degree. During his time at the UN, he was considered by journalists and diplomats alike an expert on Cyprus – rarely missing a twist of that never-ending saga,” the spokesman said.

Before his retirement in 2000, Mr. Goodman had also covered Watergate in the early 1970s and in 1980 he went to cover the siege of the United States Embassy in Tehran, Iran, a crisis that had started in late 1979.

Mr. Goodman, an Oxford University graduate, is survived by his widow, Zmira Goodman.