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The Washington Times (thanks to Jeffrey Imm) asks: "How close should journalists get to thugs and murderers to get the facts?"
It's a question that has troubled editors for a long time, but a question that isn't asked nearly often enough. The question takes on new significance in an age of terrorism. We revisit it now that Columbia University has awarded a Pulitzer Prize to an anonymous Associated Press photographer whose connections to terrorists yielded an extraordinary scoop. ...The photograph was riveting. It depicted the murder of three Iraqi election workers in broad daylight in the middle of Baghdad's busy Haifa Street. In it, an unidentified gunman stands unmasked. The slumped body of his first victim lies at his feet. To the right, a soon-to-be dead victim kneels and faces the oncoming traffic.
In a climate of doomsaying about the January elections, the image resonated with American and European critics of the war. The photograph seemed to confirm fears about where the Iraq insurgency was heading (as well as offering further evidence of the depravity of the insurgents). By depicting a brazen terrorist murdering helpless Iraqi democrats, it put a new face on the Baghdad violence.
That, as it turned out, was precisely what the assailants intended. It was no accident that the AP photographer was present to record the act. The assailants had spun him into covering it....
Read it all.
Posted by Robert at April 8, 2005 3:34 PM
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This defies understanding. This photograph should never have been published, let alone given a prize; this is just helping our enemy in its nonstop publicity campaign. Columbia University and the AP acted despicably and without ethics. What else is new? We are our own enemy.
Posted by: former liberal WF![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at April 8, 2005 4:24 PM
Check this out at:
http://memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD88905
snip:
Progressive Kuwaiti Intellectual Ahmad Al-Baghdadi Requests Political Asylum in the West
On March 21, 2005, progressive author and lecturer Ahmad Al-Baghdadi, who teaches political science at the University of Kuwait, published a request for political asylum in the West in the Kuwaiti liberal daily Al-Siyasa. This move was in response to being sentenced by a Kuwaiti court to three years on probation on 2,000 dinars [$6800] bail, with violation punishable by a one-year prison sentence, on charges of contempt for Islam.
In a June 5, 2004 article, Al-Baghdadi responded to reports that the Kuwaiti Education Ministry was demanding that private schools increase Islamic education classes and allocate time for rote Koran learning. As a result, private schools would have to reorganize their curricula, and one ministry official suggested removing music classes to make way for the additional religious studies.
Following the publication of this article, Al-Baghdadi was sued by three Islamists who accused him of contempt for Islam. In January 2005, he was acquitted by a lower court that ruled that he had merely expressed his personal opinion. However, on March 19, an appeals court overturned this decision and ruled that Al-Baghdadi had exceeded the bounds of expressing an opinion and legitimate criticism by making statements suggesting a connection between the study of Islam and rote Koran learning, and intellectual backwardness and terrorism. [1]
After publishing his request for political asylum, Al-Baghdadi wrote another article, on March 26, declaring his withdrawal from writing in Kuwait. [See MEMRI's Reform Project for more on Al-Baghdadi [2] ]
The following are excerpts from all three articles:
"Music and Developing Artistic Taste Are More Important than Rote Koran Learning and Religious Studies"
In his June 5 article, Al-Baghdadi wrote: "I am a parent of a child who attends an English school. I sought to enroll him in this school and to bear the heavy expenses in order to protect my son from the backwardness of the [Kuwaiti] Education Ministry curricula.
"But it is clear that the Education Ministry is determined to systematically destroy private education, having failed at public education. I am not one of those who fear religion, or who grow beards or wear religious turbans, and in my opinion music and developing artistic taste are more important than rote learning of the Koran and religious studies. The religious studies that already exist are definitely sufficient. I do not want to waste my money on any [additional] religious studies…
"I don't want my son to be taught by ignoramuses not to respect women and non-Muslims. I don't want those in charge of determining the non-educational curricula – who are backwards both cognitively and intellectually – to fill my son's head with traditions about demons.
"I want my son to study foreign languages – which are better for him than the dead Arabic language – and to study music so he can develop artistic taste, and to study other real sciences that will help him in life – such as chemistry, physics, history, and the social sciences…
"In all honesty, I do not want my son learning the Koran by rote. I do not want him to be an imam, or to recite prayers in the tents of the dead. I do not want his future to be the path of intellectual or actual terrorism.
"I want a son who seeks peace and who loves all people regardless of color, race, or religion. I want him to build society, not destroy it. In brief, I want to have a son of whom I can be proud because of his knowledge and reasoning, not because of his intellectual backwardness…" [
at April 8, 2005 4:32 PM
"In all honesty, I do not want my son learning the Koran by rote. I do not want him to be an imam, or to recite prayers in the tents of the dead. I do not want his future to be the path of intellectual or actual terrorism.
"I want a son who seeks peace and who loves all people regardless of color, race, or religion. I want him to build society, not destroy it. In brief, I want to have a son of whom I can be proud because of his knowledge and reasoning, not because of his intellectual backwardness…" [
Good God. Lock him up.
at April 8, 2005 5:17 PM
The award is as beneathe contempt and ghoulish as the jihad collaborator who took them! Wouldn't it had been great if he tipped us off to their plan, he could have had a shot of 5 dead terrorists in the street after a failed terror attack!
Posted by: Jakester at April 8, 2005 10:08 PM
another journalist:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4426713.stm
Posted by: jimbabwe at April 8, 2005 10:24 PM
Pulitzer Prize-winning photos by the Associated Press weren't always so negative.
Posted by: GaijinBiker at April 9, 2005 10:46 AM
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