NY Times/Wikipedia help save journalist by not revealing that he was captured

[Syringer]

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009...orting-on-his-capture/

Earlier this week, New York Times reporter David Rohde escaped from a Taliban prison. He had been a Taliban hostage for the last seven months, but the general public had absolutely no clue. In a joint effort by The New York Times and Wikipedia, the story was kept quiet until his daring escape.

In November 2008, Rohde was captured and held hostage by the Taliban, along with a local reporter, Tahir Ludin, and their driver, Asadullah Mangal. But until he managed to escape, most of the general public had absolutely no clue. To prevent Rohde?s value in the eyes of his captors from rising, the New York Times kept more than 35 major news organizations from reporting on the story. They believed that the publicity from reporting his capture would inflate the value of Rohde?s life, increasing the difficulty of negotiating for Rohde?s release.

This is an interesting conclusion to the story..I wonder how this parallels to the Laura Ling and Euna Lee situation, which took the complete opposite turn when it came to coverage, and whose situations grow more dire by the minute.

CurrentTV has kept completely quiet about it, but politicians and the news networks have tried all they can to keep the public up to date?but is it effective?

Does all the attention given to them simply raise the ?value? of the journalists who are captured, making it that much harder for them to either escape, or negotiate an escape?

Are the news networks and politicians helping the cause at all by bringing all this attention to their cases and making the public aware?

Based on the situation above, and through common sense, I?m inclined to say no?holding candlelight vigils and posting links of Ling/Lee on Facebook may be nice gestures and all, but uh no amount of online signatures asking for their freedom is going to make the North Korean government go, ?well gee golly there?s so many people on the internet who are against what we?re doing, let?s release them!?

 

[JSt0rm]

I'm surprised they were able to keep everybody quiet. i mean most of those networks dont give 2 shits about this dude and would love to spurt out another 24hours of news over it.

 

[Syringer]

Originally posted by: JSt0rm01
I'm surprised they were able to keep everybody quiet. i mean most of those networks dont give 2 shits about this dude and would love to spurt out another 24hours of news over it.

The irony is that in the comments people point out that the NY Times themselves often report these captures, when they're from other news sources of course..

 

[ebaycj]

Originally posted by: JSt0rm01
I'm surprised they were able to keep everybody quiet. i mean most of those networks dont give 2 shits about this dude and would love to spurt out another 24hours of news over it.

They've gotten used to only broadcasting / reporting on what they're told to.

 

[Thump553]

I can see how sometimes publicity helps protect kidnapping victims-like in North Korea, where publicity/propoganda is 99% of the regime's intent-and how sometimes it hurts.

Look at the Taliban's track record. They are not interested in ransoms at all. They want publicity viewed favorably by radical Islam to attract recruits. They have a long history of seeking publicity by executing it's victims in as gory a method as possible. Smart move on the NYT's part to keep it under wraps and ask that the other media sources do the same. In fact, I suspect all major organizations in Afganistan or Pakistan are following this model-when was the last time you read a story about a soldier or multinational employee being kidnapped there?

Reading a vast conspiracy of the "main stream media" being controlled by the NYT may be politically convenient for some, but I think it's a huge stretch and ignores the practicalities of the situation.

 

[cubeless]

hmmm... "practicalities of the situation"??? sounds like a pretty slippery slope for deciding what to report... not that i want the guy to get whacked or anything, but they publish stuff that ostensibly hurts our soldiers enmasse with seeming regularity... but i guess they aren't nyt staff so it's a different "situation"...

 

[Thump553]

Originally posted by: cubeless
hmmm... "practicalities of the situation"??? sounds like a pretty slippery slope for deciding what to report... not that i want the guy to get whacked or anything, but they publish stuff that ostensibly hurts our soldiers enmasse with seeming regularity... but i guess they aren't nyt staff so it's a different "situation"...

Since you claim the media does this with seeming regularity, please post three such examples within the last three months. That would cover many thousands of news reports.

The only such instance that comes to my mind was at the beginning of this Iraq War when an imbedded Fox News reporter (Geraldo) publically disclosed his unit's location. As I recall, he got booted or yanked out of Iraq for that.

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: Thump553

Originally posted by: cubeless
hmmm... "practicalities of the situation"??? sounds like a pretty slippery slope for deciding what to report... not that i want the guy to get whacked or anything, but they publish stuff that ostensibly hurts our soldiers enmasse with seeming regularity... but i guess they aren't nyt staff so it's a different "situation"...

Since you claim the media does this with seeming regularity, please post three such examples within the last three months. That would cover many thousands of news reports.

The only such instance that comes to my mind was at the beginning of this Iraq War when an imbedded Fox News reporter (Geraldo) publically disclosed his unit's location. As I recall, he got booted or yanked out of Iraq for that.

Gee really? How many weeks did the NYTimes run with prisoner abuse in Abu Grahib? How about the treatment of prisoners in gitmo? Flushing a quaran down the toilet? About waterboarding? How many classified programs were spilled by the NyTimes? All of those stories surely inflamed hatred and most likely got somebody killed because of it. Funny how when it is their guy it is time to stay hush hush, but our troops over seas? Fuck them!

 

[cubeless]

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: Thump553

Originally posted by: cubeless
hmmm... "practicalities of the situation"??? sounds like a pretty slippery slope for deciding what to report... not that i want the guy to get whacked or anything, but they publish stuff that ostensibly hurts our soldiers enmasse with seeming regularity... but i guess they aren't nyt staff so it's a different "situation"...

Since you claim the media does this with seeming regularity, please post three such examples within the last three months. That would cover many thousands of news reports.

The only such instance that comes to my mind was at the beginning of this Iraq War when an imbedded Fox News reporter (Geraldo) publically disclosed his unit's location. As I recall, he got booted or yanked out of Iraq for that.

Gee really? How many weeks did the NYTimes run with prisoner abuse in Abu Grahib? How about the treatment of prisoners in gitmo? Flushing a quaran down the toilet? About waterboarding? How many classified programs were spilled by the NyTimes? All of those stories surely inflamed hatred and most likely got somebody killed because of it. Funny how when it is their guy it is time to stay hush hush, but our troops over seas? Fuck them!

thanks for the assist...

i would chase around and find predator attacks killing nnn civilian reports and such, but my point was more general that when it becomes 'what i think causes what' is the very subjective criteria then what's left of journalistic integrity is mostly gone...

 

[theeedude]

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: Thump553

Originally posted by: cubeless
hmmm... "practicalities of the situation"??? sounds like a pretty slippery slope for deciding what to report... not that i want the guy to get whacked or anything, but they publish stuff that ostensibly hurts our soldiers enmasse with seeming regularity... but i guess they aren't nyt staff so it's a different "situation"...

Since you claim the media does this with seeming regularity, please post three such examples within the last three months. That would cover many thousands of news reports.

The only such instance that comes to my mind was at the beginning of this Iraq War when an imbedded Fox News reporter (Geraldo) publically disclosed his unit's location. As I recall, he got booted or yanked out of Iraq for that.

Gee really? How many weeks did the NYTimes run with prisoner abuse in Abu Grahib? How about the treatment of prisoners in gitmo? Flushing a quaran down the toilet? About waterboarding? How many classified programs were spilled by the NyTimes? All of those stories surely inflamed hatred and most likely got somebody killed because of it. Funny how when it is their guy it is time to stay hush hush, but our troops over seas? Fuck them!

That is reporting on government policy and/or its execution. That is what independent media is supposed to report on in a free society. There is an enormous and compelling public interest in knowing what the government is doing on our behalf, to prevent abuses. There is no such public interest in publicizing name of a hostage. So it's completely asinine to equate the two, which of course has never stopped the right.

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: senseamp

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: Thump553

Originally posted by: cubeless
hmmm... "practicalities of the situation"??? sounds like a pretty slippery slope for deciding what to report... not that i want the guy to get whacked or anything, but they publish stuff that ostensibly hurts our soldiers enmasse with seeming regularity... but i guess they aren't nyt staff so it's a different "situation"...

Since you claim the media does this with seeming regularity, please post three such examples within the last three months. That would cover many thousands of news reports.

The only such instance that comes to my mind was at the beginning of this Iraq War when an imbedded Fox News reporter (Geraldo) publically disclosed his unit's location. As I recall, he got booted or yanked out of Iraq for that.

Gee really? How many weeks did the NYTimes run with prisoner abuse in Abu Grahib? How about the treatment of prisoners in gitmo? Flushing a quaran down the toilet? About waterboarding? How many classified programs were spilled by the NyTimes? All of those stories surely inflamed hatred and most likely got somebody killed because of it. Funny how when it is their guy it is time to stay hush hush, but our troops over seas? Fuck them!

That is reporting on government policy and/or its execution. That is what independent media is supposed to report on in a free society. There is an enormous and compelling public interest in knowing what the government is doing on our behalf, to prevent abuses. There is no such public interest in publicizing name of a hostage. So it's completely asinine to equate the two, which of course has never stopped the right.

The news is the news. A reporter being captured by the Taliban is news. NYTimes decided they didnt want to report the news out of fear of escalation. They dont apply that same litmus test across all stories. They lose credibility in many people's eyes.