Wikipedia Censored To Protect Captive Reporter

AI writes with a story from the NY Times about a 7-month-long effort, largely successful, to keep news of a Times reporter's kidnapping off of Wikipedia. The Christian Science Monitor, the reporter David Rohde's previous employer, takes a harder look at the issues of censorship and news blackout, linking to several blogs critical of Wikipedia's actions. Rohde escaped from a Taliban compound, along with his translator, on Saturday. "For seven months, The New York Times managed to keep out of the news the fact that one of its reporters, David Rohde, had been kidnapped by the Taliban. But that was pretty straightforward compared with keeping it off Wikipedia. ... A dozen times, user-editors posted word of the kidnapping on Wikipedia's page on Mr. Rohde, only to have it erased. Several times the page was frozen, preventing further editing — a convoluted game of cat-and-mouse that clearly angered the people who were trying to spread the information of the kidnapping... The sanitizing was a team effort, led by Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, along with Wikipedia administrators and people at The Times."

Comments

Re:the blackout was a good idea

[cellurl]

I get all my news at wikipedia.
Especially cum shot info

Re:why

[sbeckstead]

The f'ing word is THAN moron!
It seems to you that this is more political than anything.
Otherwise we are left waiting to hear what anything did.

Re:the blackout was a good idea

[edward2020]

The illustrations found on wikipedia of that very important act also add a whole lot. Wikipedia user seedfeeder's depiction of 'the money shot' is truly one for the ages.

Re:the blackout was a good idea

[radtea]

replying to undo an erroneous mod