Who said that the Mainstream Media is incapable of discretion when it comes to releasing "hot" news stories? As we know, journalists obsessively cover any kidnapping or attack on Americans or coalition forces in Iraq, regardless if this gives aid or comfort to the enemy. There seems to be one exception to their penchant for publicizing setbacks in our efforts in Iraq:when fellow journalists' lives may be at stake.

Apparently, all of else are created equal, but journalists are just more equal than the rest of us. The New York Post reports:

You wouldn't know it from mainstream press coverage of the War on Terror, but journalists are actually capable of withholding news when human lives are on the line.

Reporters' lives, that is.

American soldiers, Marines and others fighting the terrorists are on their own.

Take the case of Christian Science Monitor freelance reporter Jill Carroll, 28, who was kidnapped over the weekend in Baghdad.

Carroll was abducted from a Sunni Arab neighborhood Saturday morning — but U.S. papers didn't carry their first accounts of her kidnapping until Tuesday.

At the Monitor's request, major U.S. news outlets, including — no surprise here — The New York Times, observed a "news blackout."

The blackout was only broken because foreign press outlets were running the news and it was becoming embarrassing for the American media to keep ignoring it. [snip]

What's galling, frankly, is that the American press seldom — if ever — seems to care when their activities place non—journalists in grave danger.

A few examples:

* In December, The Times disclosed classified information revealing that the White House had secretly engaged in warrantless eavesdropping on U.S.—based international phone calls and e—mail.

That is, the paper blew the lid off what President Bush rightly calls "a vital tool in our war against the terrorists." Indeed, the administration says the program had uncovered several terrorist plots — but, obviously, that tool is now compromised.

Has that cost American lives?

Will it cost American lives?

Does The Times even care?

* Last May, the paper revealed — in great detail — how the CIA uses its own airline service, posing as a private charter company, as the "discreet bus drivers of the battle against terrorism."

These civilian planes are used to go places where military planes wouldn't be welcome — but now such CIA operations have been compromised.

There are more examples. Read the whole thing.

Ed Lasky  1 12 06