[WikiEN-l] News agencies are not RSs

[Sam Blacketer]

On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 8:42 PM, Risker <risker.wp at gmail.com> wrote:

> While I cannot speak for the New York Times, Canadian media have acted in
> the same way to protect members of NGOs who have been kidnapped.


There's a two-year-old ongoing kidnapping in Iraq involving five Britons - a
consultant and four security guards. The consultant was named immediately
but the security guards were not; eventually their first names only were
released*. That embargo has held through the British media and no foreign
media has broken it either.

There is much more of a culture in Britain whereby voluntary media embargoes
are held to (think Prince Harry in Afghanistan, for example). There are
definitely circumstances where, although the law should not be used, it is
still in everyone's interests if certain details are not reported. In the
abstract the press doesn't report things simply for the pleasure of seeing
them reported, but because they are important and it is in the public
interest that they should be known. An encyclopaedia isn't in the exact same
position but it is close enough.

* Two of the security guards died during their captivity; when their bodies
were repatriated last week their full names were released. It became
possible to check and neither had been mentioned in any British publication.

-- 
Sam Blacketer