If you haven’t read it already, the four New York Times journalists, Anthony Shadid, Lynsey Addario, Stephen Farrell and Tyler Hicks, who were abducted in Libya, held for six days and released yesterday, have written an account of their time in captivity. The piece recounts their at times brutal treatment at the hands of Col. Qaddafi’s loyalist forces.

A half-hour later, we arrived on what we thought were the outskirts of the other side of Ajdabiya. A man whom soldiers called the sheik questioned us, then began taunting Tyler. “You have a beautiful head,” he told Tyler in a mix of English and Arabic. “I’m going to remove it and put it on mine. I’m going to cut it off.” Tyler, feeling queasy, asked to sit down.

Sadly, they believe their driver, Mohammed, died as a result of their capture.

If he died, we will have to bear the burden for the rest of our lives that an innocent man died because of us, because of wrong choices that we made, for an article that was never worth dying for.

It does make you think of the cost involved in covering stories like this and if it’s worth it. All four journalists said they’d had scary run-ins or close calls before. Despite the whole maybe-my-nine-lives-are-running-out thing, I’m willing to bet this will not deter them from covering future conflicts, though.

Source: New York Times