10/27/06

AP vents frustration with case of detained photographer


NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- The U.S. military's indefinite detention of an Associated Press photographer in Iraq, without charges, is an outrage and should be seen as such by the journalistic community, AP editors said.

"We are angry, and we hope you are, too," AP International Editor John Daniszewski told a gathering of the Associated Press Managing Editors on Oct. 27.

In interviews, the leaders of APME and the American Society of Newspaper Editors shared frustration with the case of Bilal Hussein, who has been held by the military since April. Later they and the president of the Associated Press Photo Managers signed a letter to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld urging him to release the photographer.

The editors said Hussein's arrest "has denied our readers a part of the story" and given the military justice system "a black eye."

The Pentagon's refusal to give Hussein "his day in court, or any semblance of due process, has violated a cherished American value," they wrote.

The AP similarly has called for the military to release the photographer or charge him with a crime.

Hussein was arrested in April and accused, "vaguely," of being a security threat, said Santiago Lyon, the AP's director of photography. The military has said Hussein was in the company of two alleged insurgents. Daniszewski said that when the news cooperative pressed for further details, the best it could learn was that Hussein was allegedly involved in the kidnapping of two journalists by insurgents in Ramadi.

However, Daniszewski said the two journalists were asked by AP about the incident and that they recalled Hussein as a "hero" who helped evacuate them from harm's way.

Lyon said he reviewed Hussein's images and interviewed his colleagues and found nothing to suggest he was doing more than his job in a war zone. The vast majority of images depicts the realities of war, Lyon said, and "may be an inconvenient truth, but a truth nonetheless."

Some of Hussein's images were shown to the newspaper editors. One showed a man sweeping up a blood-drenched floor; another, a row of four dead children and others of wounded Iraqis. Lyon said Hussein captured important and compelling images of the effects of war.

Hussein is an Iraqi national, as are nearly all AP journalists in the war-torn country, Lyon said. He also is one of about 13,000 men and women being detained in Iraq without getting a trial, Daniszewski said.

David Zeeck, president of ASNE and executive editor of The News Tribune of Tacoma, Wash., said Hussein's detention was reminiscent of how Saddam Hussein dealt with reporters. "He would hold them incommunicado," Zeeck said.

Suki Dardarian, deputy managing editor of The Seattle Times and who was completing her term as president of the APME, said what's happened with Bilal Hussein could have a chilling effect on the work of other journalists. Hussein's detention has virtually halted the production of photographs from the dangerous region in which Hussein worked, Daniszewski said.

The president of the Associated Press Photo Managers, Steve Gonzales, said in an e-mail that his group understands "the necessity of unbiased visual journalism in theaters of conflict."

Rosemary Goudreau, editorial page editor of The Tampa Tribune, asked AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll what papers like hers could do.

"You run an editorial page, as I recall," Carroll said.

At a separate panel discussion on Oct. 27, editors said citizen journalists are able to meet a demand for local news that traditional newspapers cannot satisfy.

But, the editors said, holding onto volunteer reporters can be challenging.

"We want to open the gates below but still keep some control above," Lew Friedland, a journalism professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said in an interview.

For every 10 people trained in journalistic practices and ethics, Friedland said, his site manages to keep two. "When you've got a day job, going out and reporting is really hard," he said.

Deb Boisvert, a school technology coordinator who moonlights for the New Hampshire-based w.forumhome.org, said the site was created by community members who wanted more information on local politics. Its volunteer reporters -- who cover what interests them -- wear press badges and hand out business cards.

"I feel like the public needs to know, and in a small town, I want to be an informed citizen," she said in an interview. "And it's nice to move beyond that did-you-hear gossip."