oh, wait

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That could get into a bidding war: NY Times vs Al Qaida, or others who might not treat him so well. If these guys are driven by money, they wouldn't hestiate to go on the open market, advertising him as the next potential Danny Pearl.

Al Qaida affiliates don't do a lot of kidnapping themselves; they contract out with local thugs, or take advantage of the people kidnappers happen to target.

Outrage is way off base, here.

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They wanted to mark up his ransom price? What if he got held by some other kidnapper one day who was of the Daniel Pearl bent?

This is not a controversy. Someone is in life-threatening trouble, and if there is any question at all over whether reporting it is "good" or "bad" - you err on the side of keeping your trap shut.

"Flatly contradict"??? YOu guys are so great, it must be nice, from the safety of your apartments, to give the "public has the right to know" argument in any form. Ransom could have been paid and Rohde killed anyway. Kidnappers are not rational people who can be expected to honor their end of the bargain.

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The Times doesn't owe you anything. It said what it said and kept it's reporter safe.

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"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.

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