Layalina Productions, Inc. | The Layalina Review: "Mixed Criticism for Suppressing Journalist's Kidnapping"

The Layalina Review

VOL. V NO. 14, June 19-July 02, 2009

Mixed Criticism for Suppressing Journalist’s Kidnapping

David Rohde, a reporter for the New York Times, was kidnapped seven months ago in the North Waziristan region of Pakistan where he was working on a book, reports Asharq-Alawsat.

After much deliberation, the Times decided not to publish the story, although Executive Editor Bill Keller told Howard Kurtz at the Washington Post that, “we agonized over [the decision] at the outset and… over the last seven months.”

“It makes us cringe to sit on a news story… but the freedom to publish includes the freedom not to publish,” Keller continues. Asharq Al-Awsat also reports that the Times justified withholding the story because they felt it would help limit danger to the kidnapped man.

The situation was complicated further when Rohde won his second Pulitzer Prize last month, and the Times feared they would be unable to prevent word of his kidnapping from leaking, says Brad Norington of The Australian.

Kurtz also quotes Keller as saying that the Times only made their decision after consulting with kidnapping experts and other media outlets that had been in similar situations.

“We obviously would always err in favor of the safety of the reporter,” said Washington Post Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli to Kurtz. He goes on to also cite editors at the Associated Press and the San Francisco Chronicle in defense of the Times’ complicated position.

Kurtz claims that “at least 40 major news organizations,” including Al-Jazeera, complied with the Times' appeal to suppress the story of Rohde’s capture. When it was reported by an Italian news agency and subsequently began appearing on a few popular blogs, Keller convinced each blogger to remove the information.

But some in journalism are questioning the ethical grounds and double standard of the media blackout. On the Global News Blog at the Christian Science Monitor, Dan Murphy points out that when Monitor reporter Jill Carroll was kidnapped during an assignment in Iraq in 2006, other major news sources denied the Monitor’s requests to keep her situation out of the press.

In response, Murphy asserts that the handling of Rohde’s situation “reflects the set of informal rules” that the news media has developed in response to modern warfare and “the new kinds of reporting [it requires].”

Bob Steele at the Poynter Institute addressed Murphy's comment, saying, “We show a preference for one of our own in journalism generally by holding back a story… [but not for] the kidnapped oil field worker or diplomat or tourist.”

In an editorial for the National Post, Kevin Libin points out that because Rohde was safely returned home, the decision of the Times and other media outlets to suppress the story seems justified and reasonable. But, he asks, would we be able to take the moral high ground if there had been “a different, unhappier ending?”

Although it is impossible to say whether or not the media blackout saved Rohde’s life, or any other journalist who has received the same treatment, Libin shows that the question still remains as to why abducted reporters should be more carefully managed than those outside the profession.

Back to articles