Inkless Wells

Paul Wells on all the latest out of Ottawa—along with the occasional post about jazz. Follow Paul on Twitter: @InklessPW

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UPDATED: The secret revealed — a happy day

by Paul Wells on Saturday, November 8, 2008 2:27pm - 50 Comments

Dear reader, there is something we have not been telling you. For weeks now, most reporters on Parliament Hill have known, but not reported, that our friend and colleague, CBC television reporter Melissa Fung, was being held captive by kidnappers in Afghanistan. In order to increase the likelihood of her safe return, we had all agreed to keep Melissa’s kidnapping a secret.

Now we can tell you, because now she is free. The Prime Minister is about to have a news conference. I’ll have more in about an hour.

UPDATE: ITQ has brief details from the Prime Minister’s press conference. I’ll have video up inside a half hour. The CBC will hold its own news conference at 3:30 p.m. Eastern.

The prime minister’s answers on questions regarding ransom seem, to my untotored ear, to have been categorical: he says there was none. He left other questions unanswered, sometimes for obvious security reasons and at other times because there probably is no knowable answer.

More soon.

UPDATE: John Cruickshank, the CBC “publisher,” just finished a news conference. Much relief, few new details. Cruickshank, too, says there was no ransom. He emphasized that Melissa was on her second tour in Afghanistan. The trip to Kabul, with a fixer but no military escort, will be debated endlessly by assignment editors. (Every reporter in Afghanistan has a big decision to make, every day they’re there: stay with soldiers, accept their protection along with their extremely limited freedom of movement, in exchange for a better understanding of their task and its limitations — or go out, alone and essentially unprotected, to get closer to ordinary Afghans? There is never a right answer. The tension between the two paths is constant.)

UPDATE: here’s the video.

Tags: Melissa Fung

More by Paul Wells

Brian

Brent Fullard:

shameless (SHAE-M-LESS adjective) – unable to feel disgraced about one’s actions.
coward (COW-ERD adjective.) – to thwart all courage or bravery

Taken together they mean: someone who, after comparing Harper and the Conservative government to Hitler and a band of Nazis on multiple occassions – decides to apologize only after these outrageous and insensitive remarks might hurt his own chances at running as a Liberal candidate.
BJR

I don’t mean to be too much of a smart-ass, and I am certainly happy she has been returned safely, but I have a question, Paul: If she hadn’t been a journalist — say she was an MP — and if the government had requested that you keep news of the kidnapping quiet in order to increase the chances of her safe return, would the media have respected this request? Maybe an MP is too public a figure to keep it quiet. What about an aid worker? Or a Canadian soldier?

I ask this more as a journalistic ethics thought experiment than as an indictment of how the media handled this case. And for what it’s worth, I doubt the election had anything to do with this.
Sisyphus

Oh, there are so, so many things we don’t know and probably will never know.

We could go into a Rumsfeldian riff about what is knowable and unknowable but let’s not.

In any case, my life will be the same if I don’t know that Yusef and Omar got an all expenses paid vacation to Sharm-el-Sheikh or whatever. The lady is safe.

Two points I do have:-

- The CBC dropped the contracts of two very experienced war zone correspondents recently.
Would they have made the same decision that Ms. Fung did ?

- I can live without the Mother Corp huffing and puffing about corporate and journalistic resolve and
responsibility blah blah. They’ve spent the past twenty years cowering in the corner like a kicked
puppy and scuttling out at budget time to kiss gummint butt. Sadly, best of a bad bunch.
Brian

Brent Fullard said “The media in Canada has little to be proud of, in manipulating events to bring about some body else’s desired outcome”

I’d hate to take you out of context here Brent (like so many other times you’ve run your mouth), but you do realize that in this case — the “somebody” was a Canadian citizen and the “desired outcome” was her release from kidnappers.

For that, everyone should be proud.
Brent Fullard

Brian:

Shameless coward indeed. No doubt you are fully informed about the circumstances under which I called Stephen Harper’s conduct into question in emails. The apology you reference was something that I was asked to make by groups who were offended, when in fact it was the interests of groups like them I had most in mind when questioning the conduct of Stephen Harper who:

(1) Wanted to ban women from wearing burkas while voting, Read: religious and ethnic discrimination and designed to marginalize such people in our democracy, (when it is permisable to vote by mail?)

(2) The CPC, In the name of “Community Outreach” profiles voters in all ridings of Canada on the basis of their race, religion and ethnicity.

What do you suppose the intent is begin these actions of Stephen Harper?

BTW: Whose interest have you come to the defense of recently? Careful, some shameless coward might brand you a shameless coward.
Brent Fullard

CTV’s double standard

On Dion interview out takes:

“We decided that it was important that CTV News not hide anything during an election campaign,” said Robert Hurst, president of CTV News.

On the kidnapping of CBC reporter Mellissa Fung (from Canadian Press article):

“Other Canadian reporters in Afghanistan learned of the Oct. 12 kidnapping shortly after it happened. Hours later, journalists travelling on the prime minister’s election campaign also heard about it.

But both the CBC and the Prime Minister’s Office asked Canadian news organizations to hold off reporting the story, saying any publicity would jeopardize chances of a safe and speedy resolution of the kidnapping.

The CBC contacted international news organizations, including The Associated Press and Reuters, and asked them to not report on it.”
john g

OK, perhaps I’m not fully understanding why the CBC thought a media embargo would help secure Melissa Fung’s release but…why did the CBC, while in the middle of their requested embargo over Melissa Fung’s abduction, run this story???
Brent Fullard

John G said:

“why did the CBC, while in the middle of their requested embargo over Melissa Fung’s abduction, run this story???” (re abduction of French foreign aid worker on November 2, 2008)

Brilliant contradiction indeed. Good sleuthing John G !

Now we are getting somewhere with the contradictory dynamics that are possibly at play here. Any credibility now to the thesis that Canada’s election had anything to do with the CBC’s decision not to report? The PMO? CTV? etc etc.
http://www.macleans.ca Kady O’Malley

I don’t think it’s wise to assume that every kidnapping situation in Afghanistan (or anywhere else, for that matter) is identical, and should be treated in the same way by the media. There is no indication that the CBC – or, more accurately, the AP, which seems to have broken the story above – did so against the wishes of the government, or the aid organization involved — in fact, they even provided some details to the media on what had apparently happened . I suspect that the decision on how much – if any – information to release publicly is made on a case by case basis.
http://www.macleans.ca Chris Selley

“CTV’s double standard.”

You really do have a knack for mind-boggling comparisons, Mr. Fullard. So let me make one: if memory serves, at least one reporter knew of Ken Taylor’s scheme to get the Americans out of Tehran in 1979 and didn’t report on it, because it would plainly have been the wrong thing to do, because lives were at stake, and because the need for/right of the public to know could easily be satisfied after the fact. In this case, whether or not it played a role in the decision, a direct request not to report was made. What the hell, exactly, is your problem?
Brian

Brent Fullard asked “Whose interest have you come to the defense of recently?”

Well, Brent…I come in defense of rational discourse – something that seems to have eluded you in your tireless crusade to demonize your opponents as the self-appointed “CEO” of a dubious lobby group, created to present an illusion of broad public opposition in a common cause , when really it’s just you — Brent Fullard — armed with a conspiracy theory decoder ring and a glass of half-empty kool-aid.

I also come in defense of empathy. On a day when a Canadian journalist is freed from her foreign captors after risking her life in our service, you impugn the the motives of the people who worked for her release with thinly-veiled accusations and by drawing incoherent lines of moral relativity between a botched Stephane Dion interview and the media’s decision to protect the safety of a fellow Canadian. Imagine for a second that Melissa Fung was a friend or family member — would you really be complaining about the process or the media’s role that ultimately led to her freedom? )Or would you just be glad she’s safe?

Mr. Fullard, with your hyper-partisan attacks and utter lack of sensitivity, you are the personification of what is wrong with the Liberal Party right now. There was no second shooter and this isn’t a grassy knoll – a woman is free and she’s coming home to her family.
Brent Fullard

Brent Fullard asked “Whose interest have you come to the defense of recently?”

Brian basically said: “Nobudy’s”
Brent Fullard

Macleans said:

Dear reader, there is something we have not been telling you. For weeks now, most reporters on Parliament Hill have known, but not reported, that our friend and colleague, CBC television reporter Melissa Fung, was being held captive by kidnappers in Afghanistan. In order to increase the likelihood of her safe return, we had all agreed to keep Melissa’s kidnapping a secret.

John G said:

OK, perhaps I’m not fully understanding why the CBC thought a media embargo would help secure Melissa Fung’s release but…why did the CBC, while in the middle of their requested embargo over Melissa Fung’s abduction, run this story???

French aid worker abducted in Kabul
Last Updated: Monday, November 3, 2008
CBC News

An Afghan bystander was killed on Monday when he tried to intervene as gunmen abducted a French aid worker on a residential street in Kabul.

One aid worker managed to escape after three assailants in a red Toyota blocked the road in front of the small van containing two French citizens, said neighbourhood police Cmdr. Mohammad Daud Amin.

A local resident who attempted to prevent the abduction was killed in the attack, Amin told the Associated Press.

Mohammad Shafi, who witnessed the attack, said the man who intervened lived in a house across from where the kidnapping occurred.

“He grabbed the machine gun of one of the kidnappers, who opened fire, burning his hand. After that the kidnapper shot him three times in the chest,” Shafi said.

Some authorities have also reported the man who died was an employee of the country’s intelligence agency.

Etienne Gille, president of French aid group AFRANE, said the man who escaped is a member of his staff.

“The car was blocked by another car that was driving the wrong way” from which “an armed man emerged,” Gille said.

Gille declined to provide the abducted aid worker’s organization but said he was in 30s, a French national and had been in the country for about a week. He added he believed it was the man’s first time in Afghanistan.

The man’s family has been informed, Gille said.

The French Foreign Ministry confirmed Monday a French aid worker had been kidnapped and that a crisis centre had been set up and was in contact with Afghan authorities.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said Taliban militants were not involved in the kidnapping.
Brian

Brent:

As an indefatigable advocate for the rights of income trust investors, I bow to you sir, comfortable in the knowledge that you never lost a single penny when Mr. Flaherty announced his decision to tax income trusts.

Most probably, it was your humanitarian nature and life-long dedication to seniors that drove you to establish a new lobby group and appointed yourself CEO of the “The Canadian Association of Income Trust Investors”. In your former life, as head of Equity Capital Markets for BMO — you probably never advised a single client that they should invest in income trusts. Surely, a man in your position would have advised his clients about the direct relationship between risk and reward and moreover, that the lucrative tax-free status of income trusts probably wouldn’t last forever and so your clients probably shouldn’t put all their eggs in one basket.

Clearly, donations of both time and money to numerous charities cannot hold a candle to an esteemed philanthropist like yourself: a man who never lost a penny personally or on behalf of his clients but went on to found an advocacy group for those who did.
Brent Fullard

Chris Selley said:

You really do have a knack for mind-boggling comparisons, Mr. Fullard. So let me make one: if memory serves, at least one reporter knew of Ken Taylor’s scheme to get the Americans out of Tehran in 1979 and didn’t report on it, because it would plainly have been the wrong thing to do, because lives were at stake, and because the need for/right of the public to know could easily be satisfied after the fact. In this case, whether or not it played a role in the decision, a direct request not to report was made. What the hell, exactly, is your problem?

Response:

Actually the “mind boggling comparison” is yours.

What exactly is the comparison between (1) the absolute need for security (and concerning information NOT KNOWN by the media) when Ken Taylor kept US diplomats in hiding to prevent their being taken hostage, with (2) disclosing knowledge on the part of the media about someone who has actually been taken hostage? As for the event your are citing, the US personel who had actually been taken hostage was information that was NOT being withheld from the public. Therefore, your analogy proves nothing indeed, except your ability at “mind boggling comparisons”.

Just to be clear, Melissa Fung’s situation is analogous to the hostages that had been taken (and reported on) and not analogous to the persons under Ken Taylor’s care (and not reported on) and who were not hostages.

Re: “What the hell, exactly, is your problem?”

I have a problem with the media withholding information under certain situations, but not under other circumstances and find it highly disingenuous when the head of CTV New is stating on November 2, 2008 that “We decided that it was important that CTV News not hide anything during an election campaign,” when in fact we learn that his news organization was a party to doing that very thing on October 12, 2008 during an election?

The circumstance isn’t the issue here (ie Dion’s interview), but rather the integrity of the media. When the head of CTV News says “not hide anything”, I assume he truly means “mot hide anything”. Evidently I am wrong. Kind of reminds me of when CTV News lied to me to provide a politician with “cover”.

And by the way, since when has it been the media standard to not report kidnappings? If that’s the standard, then it needs fo be adhered to uniformly and not selectively. Principles not applied consistently aren’t principles, but merely excuses.
http://www.truemuse.wordpress.com truemuse

Hey that’s very admirable. Try to remember that spirit when it’s not one of your own facing a similar circumstance. I wonder that it was reported as a ‘secret’ let out now.
That is more than a little freaky. It’s like using Melissa’s Fungs experience to prop up the ‘transparency’ of the media which noone believes in. Doing that, makes you wonder if she was even kidnapped at all.
Brent Fullard

Brian

Your command of the facts is truly pathetic as you conjure up stories that support your own fantasies. Where do I start? I have dealt with your earlier claim of “shameless coward”. Meanwhile, I was not a broker. I never advised a single person to buy a single security. As for the earlier statement of yours about CAITI being some phantom organization, that too is nonsense. Please see our list of members at caiti,info. I could go on rebutting more of your nonsense, but won’t.

Concerning your “grassy knoll” comment, it is you who believes in conspiracy theories if you believe Harper’s nonsense of tax leakage. if Harper is so confident about his tax leakage argument, then why the 18 pages of blacked out documents? Is that his idea of “transparency and accountability”. Meanwhile 2.5 million Canadians lost $35 billion of their life savings.

My general disregard and suspicion about the media is borne out of my experience with them on the income trust issue. The Canadian media are corporately controlled and have proven themselves to be corporately influenced in their reporting. Truly pathetic. I am now disheartened to learn that the CBC may also be subject to similar outside pressures, in this case, political pressures.
Sophie

Truemuse, what the heck is wrong with you?
A woman is k i d n a p p ed, and suddenly, its a mass-media conspiracy to make hte media seem transparent?
Perhaps everyone who is using this incident to complain about the media should shut their yaps and thank ‘whatever gods there be’ that Melissa Fung is alright.
Stephen Locke

Wow! I came on here expecting a bunch of bipartisan good-naturedness, only to find Brent Fullard getting his ass handed to him by Brian. This is way better!

Its like a hockey game broke out, and Fullard is the Leafs. Brian 4, Brent 0.
http://www.truemuse.wordpress.com truemuse

I don’t actually know exactly what happened to Melissa Fung so it’s a little early to empathize, isn’t it? This “We have a secret we can tell you now” is just …..echh…
The press always has secrets, they are treating the public like idiots. I’m right to be critical.
Sophie

Brent Fullard, you make me ashamed to call myself Liberal. I was offended by CTV’s decision to run the Dion interview, but never in my wildest dreams would I even consider comparing that to what this girl must have gone through and the media’s admirable decision to put her safety ahead of a good story.
For shame.
Sophie

You know, Truemuse, I have a vague idea that being kidnapped my Afghani militants can’t exactly be.. fun.
In this case, I think an individual’s safety trumps the public’s need to hear a good story.
madeyoulook

We in the masses can enjoy the ignorance of the last few weeks and the relief of this news. I would like to think the media would be trusted to keep a secret if a non-reporter’s safety required it. I wish I could have complete faith that this would be the case.

I hope that Ms. Fung did not suffer (any worse than the hell of captivity and the uncertainty of her fate) at the hands of the scum who kidnapped her. And whether she did or not, I would sleep just fine (not) knowing the JTF2 went medieval in Kabul. Ain’t nothing wrong with letting the message circulate among that crowd of filth that if you touch innocent Canadians, the JTF2 can keep a secret about how uncomfortable your last few hours on earth were.

I sincerely hope there was no reward (i.e. ransom) for these creeps. As much as no ransom may have meant a worse fate for Ms. Fung, there is everything wrong with letting the message circulate that kidnapping innocent Canadians is harvesting a decent cash crop.

Complete concurrence with Jack Mitchell’s list (above) of no-need-to-knows.
Paul Denton

So…we can expect similar discretion from you and your colleagues on, say, national security issues, right?

In the future, every journalist will surely weigh the consequences of publishing sensitive information, and decide that it’s not necessary to disclose something that could get innocent Canadians killed, just for the sake of a headline, right?

Right?
Paul Wells

What a mess. Comments closed on this thread.