Kidnapped American Journalist – Jill Carroll
By Denise Best | Related entries in In The News, The War On TerrorismThe latest on kidnapped journalist, Jill Carroll …
The captors of an American journalist kidnapped in Baghdad 10 days ago threatened to kill her in three days unless authorities freed all female prisoners in Iraq, according to an Arabic television network that aired a brief video of the woman Tuesday night.
Jill Carroll, a freelance reporter based in Baghdad, was shown speaking, but there was no sound with the video shown by al-Jazeera. Her skin was pale and her dark hair was pulled back from her face and straying in untidy strands. She appeared to be exhausted, but her face remained composed as she spoke.
By all accounts, Ms. Carroll, immersed herself in the Iraqi culture and strove to learn the language and the ways of that region.
By demonstrating good journalistic integrity, getting both sides of the story as best she could, Ms. Carroll placed herself at a greater risk. Hopefully the end result will be her safe return and the chance to write the story of her life.
This will probably be viewed as a controversial question, but here goes – a disclaimer first … in no way am I absolving the kidnappers for this hideous action.
Is this an example of when a journalist’s overzealousness can play into the hands of terrorism?
Do journalists bear any responsibility for how far they are willing to go in “getting the story?”
This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 18th, 2006 and is filed under In The News, The War On Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
January 18th, 2006 at 11:01 am
I don’t see it as being irresponsible. Reporters take risks all the time. The degree of risk is up to them, but their only responsibility is to the story and the people who will read it.
Yes, this plays into the hands of terrorism, but then all hostage situations do. They just grabbed a reporter this time instead of a contractor. Actually, grabbing a female reporter is more likely to create a backlash among other reporters than grabbing a male contractor. If they execute her, I can imagine it could do more damage than good to their side, at least in the West.