Monday, June 29, 2009

Bodyguard of Lies

Last November an American journalist working for the New York Times was kidnapped by the Taliban. David Rohde was staring death in the face and his employers asked media organisations not to say anything about it. They reasoned that Rohde's release price would rise if his plight was publicised, and the fuss would hinder negotiations for his freedom. They even got Wikipedia on side, altering the way it showed Rohde's reporting record, but this didn't stop an anonymous user from Florida from trying to amend the site to show the journalist's imprisonment.

Rohde escaped by climbing over a wall earlier this month, and now we can have the debate about the rightness of the cover up. Me I support it, and feel that wikipedia user in Florida was a priggish menace. The NYT piece about this quandary is here.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

interesting.....