No subject

"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. "

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitchell/again-media-and-wikipedia_b_280233.html

Given the lack of reliable sources, the removal of information on the
kidnapping seems justified. His article is here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Farrell_(journalist)


Regards


*Keith*