Only context in which these things make sense is if NYT reporter was actually “embedded” with the Taliban to write a book, one in which he had promised to treat them sympathetically. The “kidnap” give the NYT cover, and the family knows that he is safe, so no media attention i sneeded. In fact his situation might become dangerous if the news got out and a more senior warlord decided that he should be used as a real hostage.

That’s my guess, and it explains the incongruencies in the story. The immorality of doing this is stunning.

If the main issue in kidnappings is publicity, maybe the Times should have refrained from giving the terrorists that kind of visibility on all of the cases, and not just the one that involved its own reporter.

Not really, Ed. The Times put the kabache on reporting on its reporter’s kidnapper because the people hired to get him out made a request to do so. You don’t know that the families involved in those other cases asked for the story to be kept quiet. Perhaps those families preferred disclosure, whether because of differing circumstances or differing judgments as to the pro’s and con’s of disclosure.

The hypocrisy arises when the Times grants secrecy requests based on “security concerns” when it suits them (e.g. in its reporter’s case) but deny secrecy requests based on security concerns in other cases when it does not (e.g. SWIFT, warrantless wiretapping).

FIFY

I’ve said this elsewhere, but I wonder what journalists think about the fact that a Pulitizer-prize winner disappeared for 7 months, and the public barely noticed.

The best part of this story is the continued denials of the Taliban that they even kidnapped him to begin with.

drunyan8315 on June 22, 2009 at 12:05 PM

+1

And FTR, I, too, find this “kidnapping” story to be a wee bit suspicious. It’ll make a great book for the guy, though. Fiction, of course.

—————————–
Butler said he felt it was better to be kidnapped in Iraq then taken into custody by Americans in Afghanistan.

“I was pleased I wasn’t being mortarboarded in Guantanamo or being held for six and a half years like an Al-Jazeera cameraman, for instance,” he said.
—————————–

So why run the story, if it broke no laws and had — in the NYT’s estimation — already been compromised?

To try to help boost their top line by selling more newspapers. Quite consistent I must say for a statists organ. Greed over principles for them and for the statist policies they advocate.

I doubt he was kidnapped.

There, NYT, I said it.