the kicker

"An Agonizing Position"

June 22, 2009

In case you missed it over the weekend, here’s the video of New York Times editor Bill Keller discussing the abduction, and escape, of David Rohde–and the paper’s (and other media outlets’) decision to keep mum on the subject.

“It was an agonizing position that we revisited over and over again,” Keller told Howie Kurtz, guesting on CNN’s Reliable Sources yesterday morning. “But I also have a responsibility for the people who work for me. I send a lot of people out into dangerous places, and their security is also part of my job.”

Megan Garber is an assistant editor at the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University. She was formerly a CJR staff writer.