Not sure if this is the right place (I’m not really good with computers), but left you a trackback for your readers, if they ever need some information about horse tack….

As a journalist I think we’d be really going down a slippery slope if we started suppressing news of arrests — of either journalists or non-journalists.

I mean in the Star case you cite at most one life could be saved. But you could argue that many more would be saved if the news media, say, didn’t report news that jeopardized U.S. foreign policy objectives re: Iran…

Maybe that is just a good argument that we should never withhold news and just report the facts. I’m not sure. But I certainly think — and I think most if not all members of the media would agree — that any courtesies extended to reporters on this should also be extended to members of the general public…

And Hildy, your point about monetary demands not necessarily lessening the danger is a good one. Ultimately it’s impossible to know for sure what the kidnappers were after, or what they might have done if David had not escaped.

It’s obvious that many people would rather err on the side of protecting kidnap victims, and that may well be the best approach to take — I’m simply saying that if it is the best approach then it should be taken in all cases, not only those involving journalists.

The questions you raise are also good ones, and deserve to be thought about and debated as well.

On the one hand, Mr. Ingram accuses the Times of having double standards, and that’s a fair if sweeping criticism to raise, at least on an abstract level. But he stumbles badly trying to bolster his reasoning with the unique details of this case–principally by underplaying the threat to Rohde’s life. (The ‘kidnappers only wanted money’ argument.) Truth is, any journalist or soldier with real-world experience in such lawless regions as Afghanistan, Somalia or Iraq knows that ‘mere’ demands for money do not in the remotest sense translate into lesser dangers for the captives. In the past, abductees have been ‘traded up’ to more murderous, radical factions unless ransoms are met: monetary haggling in effect becomes a death sentence for the prisoners. And even bumping up the value of the ransom itself can be fatal, because the actual release operation, if and when it actually occurs, tends to be an explosive, potentially lethal affair bristling with guns, again because so much money is involved. So money = less danger is a red herring. With all due respect to Mr. Ingram, he weakens his own case by being uninformed about such matters. (Ethicist Kelly McBride’s argument–that some information should have been leaked out over time, in a controlled way–also strikes me as remarkably naive; since when can cats be allowed only partly out of the bag?)

The far more interesting–and maybe unanswerable–question here is strategic: Should journalists who are abducted (that is, non-combatants, private citizens, who are working for private media companies) be covered in the exact same fashion as abducted soldiers or intelligence agents (combatants, and representatives of our government at war)? If so, what should this universal reporting policy be? (After 10 days, all news blackouts aren’t binding? Really?) Can such guidelines even be crafted, given the radically different particulars of each kidnapping case? And, finally, if journalists who are doing their jobs deserve no special treatment whatsoever–and I can see this argument as valid–why stop at news blackouts? Why not not extend that anti-elitist position to things such as shield laws, too?

Would the NYT do the same thing for someone else? Or would they suggest that it’s their journalistic obligation regardless of the danger to the individual to report on such things.

(Here’s a piece I wrote about this on my blog when people raised similar issues after the short-lived blackout of Jill Carroll’s kidnapping.

> In 1997, California media withheld reporting on the kidnapping of 7-year-old Matthew Simms for 18 hours, until he was safely rescued. “The reaction [of news editors] was very cooperative,” said Officer Jason Lee. “I stressed the point that the safety of the little kid is at stake.”

> Newspapers briefly withheld word of the 1974 kidnapping of Patricia Hearst.

> The NY Post held off reporting for a week on the 1997 kidnapping of businessman Harvey Weinstein at the request of NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly.

> This isn’t a kidnapping, but most of the world’s media refrained from reporting for months that Prince Harry was in Afghanistan, until the Drudge Report splashed the news on its homepage.

> And this goes back aways, but in 1954 the SF media withheld reporting on the kidnapping of businessman Leonard Moskovitz. “Not a line was printed, not a word spoken about the city’s most sensational crime in many years,” The Chronicle wrote later.

You’ve also failed to address the main point, which is that if newspapers should always err on the side of caution and never report about a kidnapping if there is a chance that publicity will make things worse, then why do they routinely do the opposite, unless journalists are involved?

Insulting me or my abilities as a journalist may make you feel better in some way, but I’d rather hear a rational argument, if you have one.

Here are some of the reasons your posting is mindless:

“Is there a chance that Rohde would have been executed if the media hadn’t concealed his kidnapping? Perhaps.”

If there is an iota of a chance that Rhode would have been executed if the media hadn’t concealed his kidnapping, it is obvious that the media did exactly what it should have done. Saving Rhode’s life was infinitely more important than your abstract concern that every kidnapping should be treated exactly the same way by the press(even though, of course, they never are.)That is why your “main point” is really no point at all.

“Was David Rohde’s life at stake, John? That’s not at all clear.” Journalism is all about making reasonable judgments. If you don’t think it’s reasonable to assume in these circumstances that Rhode’s life was at risk, you have no business being a journalist.

“That said, however, I can’t think of another case in which information about a specific individual — particularly a journalist — was withheld not just by a single newspaper but by dozens of them acting in concert, and not just for days or weeks but for six months.”

This is your idea of proof? The fact that you can’t think of another comparable case? How can you possibly know that there aren’t cases of journalists or non-journalists being held right now which aren’t being handled exactly the same way?

John Heidema’s comment and experience make it clear that your ignorance on the subject of kidnapping is nearly pristine, and you made NO EFFORT to learn ANYTHING about the subject before you wrote about it. As Heidema said,
“As my story clearly shows, reducing the publicity is a long-standard technique to help protect the lives of victims and reduce their apparent asset value during negotiations.”

If you didn’t know that, you had no business writing about this in the first place.

“I would argue that they were not, and that if anything the coverup has made things harder not just for future kidnapping victims such as Rohde, but for newspapers and other mainstream media outlets as a whole.”

But the paragraphs that follow don’t address or support such a conclusion. They veer off into what I would classify as general criticism of the NY Times and media in general.

It would be interesting to hear your thoughts as to how clamping down on media coverage would endanger kidnapping victims in the future. If it did so, then the debate over the NY Times’ actions is certainly more interesting.

As it stands, The Times “coverup” either helped the situation or did not affect it materially. So at worst The Times stopped media coverage of a kidnapping that hardly qualifies as a compelling “public has the right to know” story. At best, they helped save Rohde’s life.

Or am I missing something?

All the best.

Well, what the hell, eh?

I wrote more about this on my blog:
http://bit.ly/n0Wyn

And to respond to Nico’s comment, yes, there may be principles worth dying for, but that decision is up to each person. You can decide to put your principles ahead of your own life, but you have no right to put your principles ahead of someone else’s life.

I would argue that withholding the news was abrogating principle to a greater degree than even paying a ransom would have been. Even if it had led to a death.

These kidnappers caused a whole society to go secret. Not good. Where is the democracy in that? For which principle incidentally, many soldiers & civilians are dying as I write.

How come one reporters life is supposed to be worth more than hundreds of US grunts & Afghan civilians?

I’m with Mathew Ingram on this.

I think that “better safe than sorry” is the order of the day. Was this a double standard on the part of the NYT? In some cases, sure, it seems that way.

But so what? Is that the only “negative” consequence here? I really don’t think many people read the NYT article thinking, “Wow, the NYT put a human life ahead of avoiding a double standard, how dare they!”

This isn’t an episode of 24 where the choice is torture vs. a terrorist attack. We’re talking avoiding a double standard vs. incremental increase in saving a human being.

Hats off to the NYT for choosing to focus on a human being, no matter how little the evidence is in support of their choice having an effect.

In any case, a big part of my point is that a) this case was treated in a special manner because a journalist was involved, and b) it goes far beyond anything that was done in your case or any other in my memory, since it involved an unprecedented number of media outlets over a six-month period.

It was also, as far as I can gather, arguably unnecessary in the Rohde case, unless the intent was to try and reduce the amount of money the kidnappers were seeking as a ransom.

As for the issue of whether his life was at stake, hell, I would assume that when anyone is kidnapped anywhere, that possibility should immediately surface. And in a war zone? Doubly so. John makes an excellent point above, about how this has probably happened fairly often, though with far less visibility.