if you play with the mortgage option, 4-player Monopoly can seriously take like 6 hours. And I'll be honest: Despite the horrors of being held captive, hearing the phrase "I have three houses on Park Place, that will be eleven hundred dollars" in a Pashto accent would be pretty awesome.
Nice story, Cajun Boy, but isn't our confidence in Gawker coverage of this story a little undermined now that we know that Gawker, kneeling abjectly, asks the NY Times permission before writing stories that the NY Times might possibly like to see trashed?
So tell us, did Gabriel Snyder give the go-ahead for this story after Cathrine Mathis, SVP of Communications at The New York Times Co., emailed him to ask that Gawker run it?
@forgetitjake: I think that Gabriel and Gawker made the right call here, as did every other media outlet who sat on the story after learning that publicizing it could have been detrimental to the safety of Rohde and Ludin.
Gawker's non-genuflecting posture towards the newspaper of record is well demonstrated at the level of attitude, and attitude is cheap, but now it is destroyed at the level of substance.
Gawker faithfully rags the NY Times about all the predictable things, especially when it comes to its sycophancy towards the affluent and its unprofitability, or whatever else comes in handy as a text for St Nick's repetitious but mostly wholesome sermons about the Death of Print.
But then you get an e-mail from a flack about killing a story and you lie down and spread them.
Gabriel and Gawker made the right call only if killing stories is journalism.
@forgetitjake: And they'd make the right call by increasing the odds of Rohde being killed? All you have to do is read. I know what makes me sleep better at night, and I wasn't even the one who made the call.
Nobody cares about your sleep. Sleep on your own time. When you wake up and come to work and expect credibility as a journalist, don't kill stories. Also, don't pull rank on your readers, blogger. When you have more experience as a journalist, you will realize that it is not true that all your readers have to do is read.
Journalists write about kidnapping -- practically any kidnapping -- because kidnapping is newsworthy, no matter who gets kidnapped. Political kidnapping is not a less newsworthy subset of kidnapping. The only defensible call when a journalist is kidnapped is to do exactly what you would do if a diplomat had been kidnapped, or a banker or a contractor or a ship's crew. Report it accurately and in a timely fashion.
If your own employee or colleague is kidnapped, in that case you are a party to the event and your obligations are different. (Nobody ever told you how this works?) But if the victim is not your employee or colleague, you have to report it -- unless you are willing to tell your readers that you write what interested parties and their flacks tell you you can write.
@forgetitjake: Danny Pearl's kidnapping was widely reported for days after it happened. So were the demands of his kidnappers. Then they cut his head off.
David Rohde's kidnapping was not reported, and now he is alive.
So was the Times' position that not publicizing Rohde's kidnapping would help save his life correct? I dunno. But this much is indisputable fact: Unlike Pearl, Rohde didn't get his head cut off. So I'd have to give the benefit of the doubt on this one to the Times (and to Gawker and other outlets that chose not to report on Rohde's kidnapping).
I also find this to be kind of a strange point for you to get all hostile-angry with Gawker about. They did it so some guy wouldn't die, and the guy isn't dead.
Was some great harm done by keeping this particular story quiet? Are you just really pissed that Rohde didn't get his head cut off?
@forgetitjake: Honestly, other than some theoretical idea of the 'credibility of journalists'--or more likely an hysterical hatred for the Times--what exactly justifies publicizing the kidnappings when doing so could have harmed the victims? Was there some "public's right to know" that I'm missing? And comparing this situation to releasing the torture photos is specious at best. The kidnappings were an ongoing situation, potentially affected by coverage; lives were at stake. The torture photos chronicle a particular incident in the past. We can debate their release as long as we want, unfettered by real world, human consequences.
@The Cajun Boy: second. it's people's lives, listen to the people who have been there and done that. no fucking around with that. and i am almost always otherwise opposed to authority. not this time. also, see current tv.
@forgetitjake: So if you get kidnapped by the Taliban, you'd want -- no, demand -- the media to cover it, even if your loved ones, employer and the authorities decide it would be in your best interests if it wasn't reported? Just curious if your holier-than-thou attitude about journalistic principles continues as the Taliban slips a burlap bag over your head and a noose around your neck. And at what point during seven months of captivity do you, perhaps, reconsider that it might be okay for a flack and a blogger to arrange to do something very small to keep you alive?
"Ovaka Island Eastern Point (Almost Island) $58,500 USD
This "Almost Island" (3.5 ac. Approx) is as near as you can get to having your island without the million dollar outlay. The land mass is situated on an island, on a point with a narrow portion where the land mass joins the main part of the island.... The island has a small village of friendly natives who are an economical source of labor when needed."
Honestly, I just read the VF piece on this guy and I am so sad I did not start a shell Caribbean bank a few years ago...it was so EASY and I could be in Tonga right now with a mai tai.
You know Tonga is in the Pacific not the Caribbean, right? Polynesia, I think. Of course, the only reason I know this is because I was a fan of The Tongan Kid.
06/22/09
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06/22/09
[www.imdb.com]
And... Oded Fehr to play Mr. Ludin.
[www.imdb.com]
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So tell us, did Gabriel Snyder give the go-ahead for this story after Cathrine Mathis, SVP of Communications at The New York Times Co., emailed him to ask that Gawker run it?
Apologies for the paraphrase!
06/22/09
06/22/09
06/22/09
Gawker's non-genuflecting posture towards the newspaper of record is well demonstrated at the level of attitude, and attitude is cheap, but now it is destroyed at the level of substance.
Gawker faithfully rags the NY Times about all the predictable things, especially when it comes to its sycophancy towards the affluent and its unprofitability, or whatever else comes in handy as a text for St Nick's repetitious but mostly wholesome sermons about the Death of Print.
But then you get an e-mail from a flack about killing a story and you lie down and spread them.
Gabriel and Gawker made the right call only if killing stories is journalism.
06/22/09
06/22/09
06/22/09
Nobody cares about your sleep. Sleep on your own time. When you wake up and come to work and expect credibility as a journalist, don't kill stories. Also, don't pull rank on your readers, blogger. When you have more experience as a journalist, you will realize that it is not true that all your readers have to do is read.
06/22/09
I'm not in an armchair, commenter.
Journalists write about kidnapping -- practically any kidnapping -- because kidnapping is newsworthy, no matter who gets kidnapped. Political kidnapping is not a less newsworthy subset of kidnapping. The only defensible call when a journalist is kidnapped is to do exactly what you would do if a diplomat had been kidnapped, or a banker or a contractor or a ship's crew. Report it accurately and in a timely fashion.
If your own employee or colleague is kidnapped, in that case you are a party to the event and your obligations are different. (Nobody ever told you how this works?) But if the victim is not your employee or colleague, you have to report it -- unless you are willing to tell your readers that you write what interested parties and their flacks tell you you can write.
06/22/09
David Rohde's kidnapping was not reported, and now he is alive.
So was the Times' position that not publicizing Rohde's kidnapping would help save his life correct? I dunno. But this much is indisputable fact: Unlike Pearl, Rohde didn't get his head cut off. So I'd have to give the benefit of the doubt on this one to the Times (and to Gawker and other outlets that chose not to report on Rohde's kidnapping).
I also find this to be kind of a strange point for you to get all hostile-angry with Gawker about. They did it so some guy wouldn't die, and the guy isn't dead.
Was some great harm done by keeping this particular story quiet? Are you just really pissed that Rohde didn't get his head cut off?
06/22/09
06/22/09
06/22/09
06/22/09
06/22/09
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06/19/09
This "Almost Island" (3.5 ac. Approx) is as near as you can get to having your island without the million dollar outlay. The land mass is situated on an island, on a point with a narrow portion where the land mass joins the main part of the island.... The island has a small village of friendly natives who are an economical source of labor when needed."
06/19/09
06/19/09
You know Tonga is in the Pacific not the Caribbean, right? Polynesia, I think. Of course, the only reason I know this is because I was a fan of The Tongan Kid.
06/19/09
06/19/09
06/19/09