I’ve been covering the David Rohde situation for what seems like a long time. The media stopped talking about it, nobody knew where he was, it seemed as if we’d never find out. I had setup a Google alert for anything “David Rohde” and this morning I woke up tons of emails from Google alerting me to David’s escape.
He’s on his way home.
NEW YORK Seven months ago, David Rohde, 41, a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter for The New York Times, was kidnapped by the Taliban in the Afghanistan/Pakistan region. If you never knew it, it’s for a good reason: there was a complete media blackout on reporting it, as requested by the Times. Even blogs worldwide had almost nothing on it and there were no real breaks.
Shortly before noon today, the Times reported the escape and that Rohde appears to be safe and healthy.Executive editor Bill Keller offered the following: “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. 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.”
The AP reports: “Afghan officials confirmed the kidnapping in the days after the abduction, but The Associated Press and most other Western news outlets respected a request from the Times to not report on the abductions because the publicity could negatively affect hostage rescue efforts and imperil Rohde’s life.”
Nic Robertson, the CNN correspondent in Pakistan, now reports that a source tells him that the Pakistan Army played some role in aiding the escape. No confirmation as yet.
The Committee to Protect Journalists issued this statement: “We are thrilled that David and Tahir are finally free,” said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon. “Like many media organizations, we were asked by the Times not to publicize this abduction. We agreed because we believed that in this case it was in best interests of the hostages. We send our best wishes to David and Tahir, along with their families who have also endured this ordeal.”
Related posts:
- NY Times journalist David Rohde taken hostage by Taliban in Afghanistan
- Details emerge of NY Times reporter’s escape from Taliban
- Kuwait – Kidnapped British soldier escapes after being kidnapped
- Afghanistan: British soldier killed in raid to free US reporter
- Afghan Ambassador to Pakistan kidnapped
- NY Times irresponsibility…over and over again
- Emerson: Why Does The New York Times Love Hamas?
- Polish hostage in Pakistan urges release of Taliban prisoners
- Sudan: Jihadis staged mock executions of kidnapped aid workers
- NY Times: Aiding the enemy
