Why So Few Major Takeouts From The Big News Orgs On Detained AP Photog Bilal Hussein?
December 21, 2007 -- 1:12 PM EST // //
Over at Romenesko we find that Editor and Publisher's Joe Strupp has compiled a list of his top ten picks for best newspaper-oriented stories of 2006. One of his picks quite properly is the saga of Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein, who has been held by the U.S. military in Iraq for many months now without charges:
10. Bilal HusseinThis gives me a chance to ask: Why have few if any of the major news orgs done big takeouts on this story? To the best of my knowledge, this story has basically been covered mainly by the Associated Press, with little stories done here and there by other news orgs on incremental developments in the case.The Associated Press photographer, first detained by U.S. and Iraqi military in 2006 for undefined terror-related crimes, spent the entire year in jail and recently went to court to face charges that remain unclear. The Iraqi snapper, whose gripping photo of insurgents on the attack helped the news cooperative win a 2005 Pulitzer, drew international attention and support for his cause with several organizations demanding his release and one group collecting 2,200 names on an online petition.
But this is a riveting tale that deserves major play. It's an international drama with a whole cast of characters -- Hussein himself, U.S. military officials, human rights advocates, the wingnut bloggers who are campaigning against Hussein's right to any sort of legal representation, etc. The story also raises a host of difficult questions involving wartime press freedoms, the reliance of news orgs on Iraqis for help covering the war, the impact of imagery on popular wartime morale, and the murky alliance that's emerged between military officials and the right-wing opinion machine on stories with potential to heavily impact wartime public opinion.
So why no major magazine pieces in the newsweeklies and highbrow mags? Why no network specials? Why -- aside from this, perhaps -- no major newspaper takeouts? It seems like a natural for this sort of treatment. Plus, it's kind of important, too.
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