Reporter Kidnapped
The Christian Science Monitor is reporting that Jill Carroll, a freelance writer currently on assignment in Iraq has been kidnapped and her translator killed.
As the Pensacola Beach Blog noted, the media in the US were about the only people who honored the request not to announce her name while negotiations for her release were initiated.
I would assume that the request to withhold her name was to ensure that those who were going to negotiate could eliminate false claims and deal only with those who could supply them with her name.
Unfortunately, the media doesn’t always think beyond scoops, and the negotiators don’t provide reasons for their requests. This has been going on for a while, the kidnapping of journalists, and you would think that a procedure would have been established.
