The NYT published a gripping story by Anthony Shadid, Tyler Hicks, Steven Farrell and Lynsey Addario describing their captivity in Libya. They were seized by Qaddafy forces at a checkpoint as they fled the city of Ajdabiya on March 15, and released six days later.
The man who drove them out of Ajdabiya is identified as Mohammed. These are the 23rd, 24th, and 25th paragraphs of the story:
From the pickup, Lynsey saw a body outstretched next to our car, one arm outstretched. We still don’t know whether that was Mohammed. We fear it was, though his body has yet to be found.
If he died, we will have to bear the burden for the rest of our lives that an innocent man died because of us, because of wrong choices that we made, for an article that was never worth dying for.
No article is, but we were too blind to admit that.
Mohammeds are indispensable to Anthony Shadid and other reporters. Where’s his last name? Maybe they’re keeping it out for a good reason? I’m not blaming the reporters for his death — though they should have put his story higher up in the piece. I’m blaming the culture of war reporting, the reporting of bang-bang. Such reporting is more defensible in Libya than in other places; still it’s important to raise the issues.
God willing, Mohammed is still alive. But it would be good if the Times might explain just why this story was not worth dying for.
