Another Media and Wikipedia Blackout on Kidnapping of NYT Reporter in Afghanistan

Last November, David Rohde was kidnapped in Afghanistan and held for several months, before managing to escape with his interpreter. Media around the world, at the request of the Times, kept silent about the kidnapping, and later drew criticism for this from some quarters. It has just happened again -- with my magazine, Editor & Publisher, among those not writing about it -- in the case of another well-known New York Times reporter in Afghanistan, but for a much shorter period of time.

Stephen Farrell, with his aide Sultan Munadi, were seized on Saturday and freed just hours ago in a daring raid by British commandos. Munadi and a commando were killed. Farrell is fine.

I saw some indications that Farrell had been snatched in my regular Web searches for media scoops over the weekend. As in the case of Rohde, a handful of not prominent blogs, along with very scattered media abroad (in their original language) reported that something was up, but confirmation was slight, given the silence of the Times and U.S. military.

This went on for two days, as I kept searching -- and finding that, once again, the media apparently were not rushing anything into print or online.

Also, as in the case of Rohde, I noticed that Farrell's Wikipedia entry had been scrubbed -- some user kept trying to post the kidnapping and the "news" kept getting deleted, before the entry was put under "protected" status and the cat and mouse game stopped. You can see it in the "history" there along with complaints of this "censorship crap" occurring again. (E&P covers the debate over such media blackouts here.)

The Times did not formally reach out to ask E&P to not report. although how much the Labor Day weekend had to do with that we do not know. Possibly, based on the Rohde experience, the paper felt that media would police themselves. As he had done in the Rohde episode, E&P's Joe Strupp eventually contacted Times executive editor Bill Keller, and as before, Keller confirmed the kidnapping, asked for restraint, and explained that the paper was in the midst of trying to deal with the situation.

Just hours later the commando raid came.

The New York Times site now reports:

Neither The Times nor Mr. Farrell's family knew that the military operation was taking place.

Until now, the kidnapping had been kept quiet by The Times and most other news media organizations out of concern for the men's safety. 'We feared that media attention would raise the temperature and increase the risk to the captives,' said Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times. 'We're overjoyed that Steve is free, but deeply saddened that his freedom came at such a cost. We are doing all we can to learn the details of what happened. Our hearts go out to Sultan's family.'

Greg Mitchell's latest book is Why Obama Won. He is editor of E&P. His previous book on Iraq and the media was So Wrong for So Long.

 

 

Follow Greg Mitchell on Twitter: www.twitter.com/GregMitch

Comments

[Policon]

Now if we could only get the NYT to do the same when our troops are kidnapped.

[yankees]

I agree with the NYT's but the same then holds true to our CIA agents that they would like to expose. Double Standard? Lives are in danger either way.

[noneIn2008]

They don't want the wars in the headlines. They want the people to keep their collective heads in the sand. The new philosophical question of denial: If a soldier dies in the woods without media coverage, did he die?

[thekohser]

Yes, yes... But what will we do and say when the next terrorist demands that Wikipedia be edited in such-and-such a way, or else the kidnapped journalist gets beheaded? While these current dilemmas are relatively easy to judge, they do moisten that slope that tends to get slipperier and slipperier over time. What if the next terrorist demands that Jimmy Wales step down from the Wikimedia Foundation board? Would we then say, "No, we will not submit to those demands"?

[Edward Current]

Regarding Wikipedia, if a story isn't being covered by conventional media, then it's going to be scrubbed from Wikipedia. As a Wikipedia editor, I'd do it myself. Everything on Wikipedia has to have a reliable, verifiable source. Take a look at some of the problems the site has had with 9/11 articles (similarly protected). If anyone could post "news" there, based on a couple of blogs, those articles -- and most of the site -- would be completely useless as an encyclopedia.

I'm not saying the kidnapping story isn't important. It is. Bit it was unfair of you to call out the Wikipedia community for not accepting original or unverifiable news and rumor that hasn't been conventionally reported. For an online encyclopedia that's a huge strength, not a weakness.

The fact that it isn't being covered in the MSM is an entirely different story.

[Tommy Miles]

But that's not what happened: look at the revisions. Someone from Tampa wrote that he'd been kidnapped (source is arguable: not a blog, not the NYT). It's immediately and repeatedly reverted (several times without edit summary or discussion) by anon IPs in Michigan and California, even when the longtime editor reverting these adds a reference from reliable Irish and Italian sources.

An admin semi protects the article as the anon ips seem to be engaged in vandalism.

Then TWO admins, both on the ORTS queue step on each other reverting the kidnap information out of the article and protecting it.

So this is Wikipedia's problem too, as clearly there was a directive to suppress this information, making a mockery of WP:NOTCENSORED and normal editing practice. While WP never attempts to a democracy, this is one more way in which a opaque group of senior admins/bureaucrats OWN wikipedia. All the endless bickering is for show.

[larry278]

Which sites reported this kiddnapping before this news person was released from capitivity by military force?
I served in the USAF 50 years ago. Among the things I remember from my short time in the USAF was don't talk about anything till you are ordered to speak about it & don't say much then. We were told to let the Public Information types handle it. I still don't speak of my time in the USAF. It was mostly dull & uneventful but I still wonder WTF I did some thing simply because I was ordered to do it. I can't believe I did some thing & came out of the USAF alive.

[En-ger-land]

Tragic that in the name of 'journalism', a commando and this guy's aide should be killed. Can't they report on this from a safe distance, so as not to repeatedly keep putting themselves and the amed forces in life threatening situations?

[unitron]

"Can't they report on this from a safe distance...?"

Unfortunately, that's not reporting. At best, it's stenography.

[BMS]

If bringing the kidnapped journalist(s) home alive means I do not get to read about it until after the fact then I am fine with that

I am willing to bet if a member of the author"s family was kidnapped he would support this policy in a heartbeat

[JBS]

How do you get that he does not support the policy?

He's an editor at Editor & Publisher and reports that his own publication held the story until after the reporter was freed.

He reports the event happened, that the news was blacked out in the interest of the reporter's safety and provides a link to coverage of discussion of the appropriateness of such news blackouts.

That's the story I get from his post, media blackouts of this type are happening and the appropriateness of such media blackouts is an ethical issue being discussed in the media.

He rightly reports that Wikipedia's editors wouldn't let Ferrell's page be updated while the story was still in limbo, and that someone trying to do so complained of censorship.

This is your basic "Joe Friday" story - just the facts.