How N.Y. Times Pretty Much Kept Reporter's Kidnapping Off Wikipedia
For seven months, the New York Times managed to keep news that one of the paper’s reporters had been kidnapped by the Taliban out of the headlines.
But by far more difficult was keeping the information out of Wikipedia, the newspaper reports in a lengthy article that provides a fascinating glimpse into the inner workings of the free Internet encyclopedia compiled by individual users of the website.
As part of a effort to free David Rohde, who was kidnapped in Afghanistan on Nov. 10, along with a driver and a local reporter who served as his translator, fellow Times reporter and friend Michael Moss edited both Rohde’s online newspaper profile page and his Wikipedia entry to emphasize his reporting that might be considered pro-Muslim. (Moss deleted, for instance, Rohde’s prior gig at the Christian Science Monitor, because the newspaper’s name includes the word “Christian.”)
“I knew from my jihad reporting that the captors would be very quick to get online and assess who he was and what he’d done, what his value to them might be,” Moss tells the Times. “I’d never edited a Wikipedia page before.”
Wikipedia administrators cooperated with the effort to keep Rohde’s kidnapping off of its site, at times blocking access to the page so no Wikipedia user could amend it. Nonetheless, the information was briefly posted a number of times, along with notes protesting earlier deletions of the same news.
Rohde eventually escaped from a prison in which he was then being held in Pakistan.
Additional coverage:
Christian Science Monitor: “Was Wikipedia correct to censor news of David Rohde’s capture?”
Tech Central (New York Times): “Why Wikipedia was right to stop the revelation of David Rohde’s kidnapping”
Media Notes (Washington Post): “Media Stayed Silent on Kidnapping”
ABC News: “Taliban Guards ‘Bribed’ To Help David Rohde’s Daring Escape Plan”
New York Times: “Times Reporter Escapes Taliban After 7 Months”
