On Stephen Farrell and Protecting War Journalists

There is a great article by John Burns in today’s New York Times about the duties of journalists to cover wars comprehensively, in light of the recent case of NYT reporter Stephen Farrell. Farrell was captured by the Taliban outside Kabul, Afghanistan last week. A British raid was sent to free them earlier this week, resulting in the death of both an unidentified British soldier and Farrell’s translator, Sultan M. Munadi. Farrell has his own account of the incident here. Reactions have been pretty polarized regarding the whole affair, with one end of the spectrum decrying Farrell for being a self-aggrandizing glory-seeker who gave no consideration to the lives he put at risk in his quest to get the story, and the other end showing sympathy for a terrible ordeal and gratitude that reporters would put themselves in the line of danger in order to uncover the truth in times of war.