Reckless Reporting is Inexcusable

“Steve is a fearless journalist,” stated James Hider, a Middle East correspondent for The New York Times, about his colleague at the newspaper, Stephen Farrell. A force of NATO commandos had just freed Farrell on September 9 after the Taliban kidnapped him and his translator in the Taliban-occupied Kunduz province of northern Afghanistan four days earlier. Yet four deaths in exchange for one reckless journalist’s story is an impossible transaction to defend. Journalists must exercise more caution in reporting from war-torn areas like Afghanistan. Their bravery can quickly turn into a vainglorious fixation on getting a story when others’ lives are also endangered.

Farrell had been investigating a recent German-ordered air strike targeting two hijacked fuel tankers in Kunduz that killed 70 people, a number of them civilians. The region, however, was volatile and controlled by the Taliban. Despite police warnings, Farrell entered Kunduz without a military escort, armed with nothing more deadly than the language abilities of his translator. In the mission to save Farrell, a dual British-Irish citizen, four people were killed: a British commando in the NATO force, an Afghani man and woman—both civilians—and Farrell’s own translator, Sultan Munadi.

When did reporters decide that they are CIA operatives? Certainly, undercover and investigative journalism has a long history, but generally such people have assumed all risks for themselves and themselves alone. Farrell, by shunning a military escort, made himself into a liability for NATO as well as for The New York Times, which did not report on the situation for fear of Taliban reprisal against its hostages. The Allied forces became responsible for rescuing Farrell from a situation into which he should have never put himself, much less put the life of his co-worker Munadi, a married man with two children who had worked as a translator for U.S. newspapers for many years. Farrell’s behavior could be excused if he only endangered himself in his quest to report on the air strike, but the situation in Kunduz made that impossible—a reality Farrell should have appreciated before basically throwing himself into the Taliban’s waiting arms. Reporters should write to expose others to the truth, not foolishly expose others to danger.