The grim appearance of Steven Sotloff’s last moments is emerging as one of the iconic images of 2014. How could it not?
There’s the impassive Western man, head shaven, wearing an orange jump suit. There’s the menacing looking man in black — one hand holds the captive by the scruff of the neck, the other hand holds a knife. The backdrop — a windswept Syrian desert wasteland. I’ve seen the image a million times, and I keep getting a lump in my throat because I know what happened to Sotloff’s. I haven’t watched the beheading video. My imagination’s powerful enough.
It’s not a situation that Sotloff, or colleague James Foley a few weeks earlier, ever wanted to be in. The fate of a third hostage, British aid worker David Haines, hangs in the balance.
One aspect of Sotloff’s murder is sparking debate within the news industry: Suppressing coverage when journalists are abducted. The primary reason? Concern that publicity will endanger the captive’s life, or derail negotiations to obtain the reporter’s freedom.
This question first came up with Jill Carroll, a Christian Science Monitor reporter kidnapped in Iraq in 2006. Several editors confirmed they sat on the story for a weekend “to give authorities an opportunity to try to resolve the incident during the early hours after the abduction.” (Carroll was released almost three months later.)
It came up again with David Rohde, a New York Times reporter kidnapped by the Taliban in 2008. The mainstream media suppressed coverage of the kidnapping; the Times scrubbed Wikipedia and reportedly authorized a $2 million ransom payment. (Rohde eventually escaped and the Times said no ransom was ever paid out.)
But unlike Carroll, Rohde’s abduction was covered up for the duration of the seven-month ordeal. The public didn’t know he had been kidnapped until he came back.
Sotloff’s situation was even more precarious: He was Jewish, and also held Israeli citizenship. A network of Sotloff’s family and friends went to great lengths to erase any traces of this from Sotloff’s online footprint — articles, social media posts, and other references that would endanger Sotloff if ISIS learned who he was.
But none of this saved Sotloff. As Matthew Kalman asks:
What if the silence actually makes things worse, allowing both governments and the public to ignore the problem because no one is talking about it?
Do media blackouts work? Are they in the public interest? Here are the pros and cons of a life and death debate for the reporters risking all to bring us the stories of dangerous conflict zones. Broadcast or blackout? What would you do?
Pro blackout: Blackouts can facilitate hostage negotiations.
Anti blackout: Blackouts stifle debate and undermine media credibility.
Pro blackout: Coverage unnecessarily raises the profiles of the kidnappers, as in the case of Daniel Pearl.
Anti blackout: Reporting the abduction doesn’t mean every detail has to be aired.
Pro blackout: Reporting the abduction raises the risk of loose lips on Facebook, Twitter, etc. as people talk about it.
Anti blackout: Blackouts concede the information battle to the terrorists.
Pro blackout: Coverage raises the profile of the hostage, and therefore the ransom demands.
Anti blackout: Blackouts won’t silence the terrorists, who can post their videos on YouTube anyway.
Pro blackout: Managing a media campaign is too distracting for editors trying to secure the release of their reporters.
Anti blackout: This puts pressure on governments to obtain the release of their captive citizens.
Is there any possible compromise? The executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, Joel Simon, suggested one:
Going forward I believe the best course of action would be for media organizations routinely to report the news of a journalist’s kidnapping in a straightforward unemotional way, omitting, for example, demands from the kidnappers and indicating in clear language when they are withholding certain information at the request of family members or editors.
What would you do?
Featured image: CC BY-NC-SA HonestReporting, flickr/Christian Guthier, Rohde via YouTube/The Charlie Rose Show
