Morning Press Pass
As the consistently excellent Editor & Publisher reminded us yesterday, it's now been a month since the abduction of Christian Science Monitor freelancer Jill Carroll, and her fate continues to be unknown. A large poster of Carroll has been hung outside Rome's city hall, and a Paris demonstration urged support for her release. "We continue to explore every avenue that we can think of," David Cook, the Monitor's Washington bureau chief, told E&P.
In China, meanwhile, an editor died after a beating inflicted by police. Wu Xianghu's newspaper had accused the police of charging illegal bicycle fees. He was attacked by 50 policemen in October, and succumbed Thursday to liver and kidney problems reportedly exacerbated by the beating. His death "is a cruel reminder of the new dangers faced by Chinese journalists," Ann Cooper, executive director of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, told the BBC.
As protests continue over the Mohammed cartoons, the debate within the journalism community over whether they should be reprinted rages on. Four editors from the New York Press resigned when told to pull the cartoons from an issue devoted to them. "We have no desire to be free speech martyrs, but it would have been nakedly hypocritical to avoid the same cartoons we'd criticized others for not running," wrote now former editor in chief Harry Siegel. As he noted, editors in Jordan and France have been forced out for running the cartoons. He added: "We have no illusions about the power of the Press (NY Press, we mean), but even on the far margins of the world-historical stage, we are not willing to side with the enemies of the values we hold dear, a free press not least among them."
Most American media outlets, meanwhile, continue to not run the cartoons. CBS, NBC, CNN, The Associated Press, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and USA Today are among the outlets that have chosen not to run them, arguing that doing so would be an insult to Muslims. Fox News, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Austin American-Statesman and New York Sun have run them. "This is one of those case where there can be multiple, justifiable ethical right answers," Poynter Institute ethicist Bob Steele told USA Today. (Vaughn Ververs' take is here.)
Finally, "ABC World News Tonight" anchor Bob Woodruff, who was injured by a bomb while reporting from Iraq, is reportedly "making progress," though he remains sedated and too groggy for conversation after several surgeries. "Every day has been positive news," said his older brother Dave Woodruff. "[Doctors] predicted it would be more like a marathon than a sprint."