Ad Is Offensive to Journos Risking Their Lives

With the fate of journalist Jill Carroll still in limbo, it was upsetting to see the juxtaposition offered in today's national print edition of the New York Times. On page A8 there was an article, "Abduction of U.S. Reporter Underscores Risks in Iraq," by Sabrina Tavernise, that detailed the evolving risks covering Iraq for reporters in general, and freelancers and women journalists in particular.

On the next page, A9, was a full-page color ad for the new season of the History Channel's "Digging for the Truth: The Adventures of Josh Bernstein." The ad features Mr. Bernstein in an Indiana Jones-type outfit tied to a stake with spears pointed at him. They are promoting a story about the search for "the Lost City of Z," which if you read the New Yorker account is a mythic city in the Amazon, which several people over many decades went missing looking for.

Anyhow, the contrast between Jill Carroll actually abducted and in peril, and Mr. Bernstein in a cartoon-like glamorized version of someone taken hostage and in danger could not be more troubling and inappropriate. At a time when journalists are being kidnapped and murdered with increasing abandon for "digging for the truth," this ad seems in poor taste, to say the least.