Free Roxana Saberi!

Michael Balter 4/18/2009 07:10:00 AM Politics
Yet another journalist is jailed for doing their job, this time in Iran. A solidarity site can be found here, and I will post anything else I find about other support activities.

Granting anonymity to "sources." Glenn Greenwald has an important post excoriating the increasingly common practice of letting politicians and officials say whatever they want without having to disclose their identity, and granting anonymity without sound journalist reasons. Greenwald has been on this case for some time now, and while I have tended in the past to see it as business as usual in Washington his outrage has convinced me it is a very important issue. While the New York Times' habit of explaining why anonymity is given often seems hackneyed, we clearly need journalists to justify it in every case.
Michael Balter

Posted by Michael Balter

I have been a working journalist for more than 40 years, beginning in Los Angeles as an investigative reporter and then in Paris as a travel, food, and science writer. For more than 20 years I have covered anthropology and archaeology writer for Science, Audubon, Scientific American, SAPIENS, and other publications. I have also covered sexual misconduct for The Verge, Scientific American, and others; I write about mental health, especially schizophrenia; and I engage in occasional media criticism. I returned to the USA in October 2017 after 30 years in Paris, and now live in the New York City area, where I currently teach journalism at City College of New York (I previously taught journalism at Boston University and New York University.) For more about me and what I do, copies of my articles, information about my book, and other goodies, please visit MY WEB SITE

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1 Comments

Richard Parker said…
I feel sympathy for Roxanna Saberi being imprisoned in Iran, but to be quite honest, only because she is female and pretty.

She was operating without any journalist's credentials.

In most countries she would have been quietly murdered for spying,

I don't condone that solution; just note that that is the usual answer.
April 20, 2009 at 5:08 AM
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