Note to reporters: If you get held captive, better it be done by “Islamofascists” instead of Africans
August 31, 2006 by William K. Wolfrum
Two-time Pulitzer-Prize-winning Chicago Tribune reporter Paul Salopek made a giant mistake recently. Instead of going to Iraq and being kidnapped by evil “islamofascists” and garnering world-wide headlines, he went to Africa, where the Western world could just care less.
Salopek was arrested in the Darfur region of Sudan — where more than 200,000 people have been killed and 3 million rendered homeless since 2003 — for “Spying, writing false news and the illegal dissemination of news” among other things.
That a Pulitizer-Prize winning reporter from the Chicago Tribune gets taken in to custody in a foreign country should be huge news, but it really isn’t. Basically, Salopek was taken hostage by the wrong people. Here is what the media is talking about as far as Americans being kidnapped: Jill Carroll (kidnapped in Iraq, released several months ago), and the recently released Fox News workers Olaf Wiig and Steve Centanni.
Stories on Jill Carroll: 1,700
Stories on Olaf Wiig: 3,940
Stories on Steve Centanni: 4,180
And, just for the hell of it:
Stories on John Mark Karr: 21,300
Salopek’s life and freedom are in danger in one of the most dangerous and deadly places in the world. He was there working on an assignment for National Geographic. And now, he sits in jail, mostly ignored as the U.S. government and media work overtime to keep visions of “Islamofascists” dancing in the public’s head.
An editorial run by USAToday and other outlets on the Salopek situation is titled: “U.S. reporter’s arrest shows Sudan has something to hide.”
This couldn’t be further from the truth. They aren’t hiding anything. The Western world just continues to lack any interest in seeing.
–WKW
[...] Then what we will do, is strap bombs to these mens’ chests, have them get on buses and go into mosques, they’ll scream “Jesus, you rock!” and then kaboom, and we killed ourselves a bunch of Islamofascists. This will show the Enemy that we are serious. And that we have chests. [...]