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New York, 11:49 PM
Wed Nov 11
59 posts in the last 24 hours
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06/22/09
06/22/09
06/22/09
[www.imdb.com]
And... Oded Fehr to play Mr. Ludin.
[www.imdb.com]
06/22/09
06/21/09
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06/21/09
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
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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
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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
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06/21/09
06/21/09
On a personal note, I want to call these people "revolutionaries" so badly. I mean no disrespect when I say that I don't think that they are there yet. I'm not thirsting for blood. I really believe that a lot more good people will be harmed before this is over, but if there has to be a revolution to unseat these oppressors, then I don't want to see them have to start over and relive the first bloody week again.
06/21/09
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06/20/09
06/20/09
"From the early days of this ordeal, the prevailing view among David's family, experts in kidnapping cases, officials of several governments and others we consulted was that going public could increase the danger to David and the other hostages. The kidnappers initially said as much," said Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times.
Keller's understating how effective their news blackout was on Rohde's kidnapping. It had been widely known in the Times newsroom and media circles almost as soon as he was taken hostage; there was a report in the Afghan press and a few mentions on several blogs. For months if you start typing "David Rohde" into Google, the second search it suggests has been "david rohde kidnapped."
Still it never became a big thing like the captivity of Laura Ling and Euna Lee in North Korea because the Times was aggressive in asking outlets not to mention Rohde. When I first called the Times about this back around December, Catherine Mathis asked that we not publish anything because it could put Rohde's life in danger. Put that way, it was hard not to agree.
But still, in this age of the big bad online gossip-mongers, it was surprising to see that the NYT was able to keep so effectively keep the lid on a story.
Of course, that cooperation did not prevent the Times from publishing a pretentious story sneering at "lesser" outlets for putting their reporters in dangerous situations without the massive clout of the New York Times behind them. I am very glad to hear that Rohde is safe, but as they reported it, he escaped by walking over a wall and without any of the "experience and leverage" of an established news organization.
06/20/09
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06/17/09
Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good.