The New York Times Can Keep A Secret When One Of Their Own Has His Life On The Line

From the New York Times,

David Rohde, a New York Times reporter who was kidnapped by the Taliban, escaped Friday night and made his way to freedom after more than seven months of captivity in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Mr. Rohde, along with a local reporter, Tahir Ludin, and their driver, Asadullah Mangal, was abducted outside Kabul, Afghanistan, on Nov. 10 while he was researching a book.

…”They just walked over the wall of the compound,” Ms. Mulvihill said.

The driver, Mr. Mangal, did not escape with the other two men. The initial report was that Mr. Rohde was in good health, while Mr. Ludin injured his foot in the escape.

Until now, the kidnapping has been kept quiet by The Times and other media organizations out of concern for the men’s safety.

“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,” said Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times. “The kidnappers initially said as much. We decided to respect that advice, as we have in other kidnapping cases, and a number of other news organizations that learned of David’s plight have done the same. We are enormously grateful for their support.”

So, let’s see if we have this straight: when the New York Times has a big story, “Times Reporter Captured by the Taliban,” that impacts one of their people, they keep it quiet because they don’t want to “increase the danger to David and the other hostages.”

Yet, when the New York Times has a big story, “There’s a Warrantless Surveillance Program,” that could allow terrorists to escape surveillance so that they can kill Americans, the NYT slaps it all over their front page and Hell with how much danger it puts other people in.

If someone had revealed that David Rohde was being held by the Taliban and they had cut his head off and stuck it on a pike as a result of that, everyone, including the Times, would have bitterly criticized them. But, when we have our next terrorist attack, it’s entirely possible that the terrorists involved might have been caught if the Times hadn’t published so much classified information that helped them evade capture.

Why can’t the New York Times show everyone else the same courtesy that they were shown when their reporter was being held — or will they start doing that now that Barack Obama is in office? Did they hate Bush so much that they were willing to help Al-Qaeda kill Americans just to get back at him?

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