Michael Yon’s War on the New York Times

Posted on November 3, 2009

Did the New York Times pay for the release of David Rohde?

That’s what war correspondent Michael Yon has been saying on Twitter. The point of his tweets was not to expose the Times but to comment on what he thought was irresponsible journalism in their coverage of hostages captured by pirates.

Some of what he said includes:

Kept it all quiet for NYT. Now why are the NYT endangering British hostages in Somalia? NYT needs to shut up. They are endangering British.

NYT should stop advertising the current crisis. Cannot expect quiet for their team while risking these hostages.

The Times responded that they only published the story after contacting the victim’s family and that they didn’t break the story, as it has been getting a lot of attention elsewhere.

As to the newsworthy allegations of ransom, ABC News has reported that the Times hired a security company that bribed some of the guards to give them good treatment, but that only would have been in the thousands of dollars, not “ransom,” so to speak, and that they did at least get prepared to pay $2 million for Rohde but apparently didn’t in that situation, according to the story.

Yon tweeted again this morning about the news that they paid consultants, but he did mention that the consultants paid the Taliban, which would include the bribes.

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