Stardate 20030402.1212

(On Screen): Many organizations and their members try to maintain an even-handed view of events. They try to remain detached, independent of either side in a struggle, impartial, nonpartisan. In many ways that may be a good thing, but it can lead them to absurd lengths. The problem they face is situations where one of two sides truly is horrible by comparison to the other.

Then they face a contradiction: if they tell the truth, they will be seen as condemning that side and implicitly endorsing the other. But if they make sure to criticize both sides then they are forced to descend into a cesspit of moral equivalence which renders their moral authority worthless.

An honest man cannot always remain impartial. An impartial man is sometimes forced to lie.

Certainly members of the press end up facing that dilemma. Some have embraced partisanship; even celebrated it. Secure in their judgment, they forthrightly proclaim one side as being better than the other.

Then you have people like Moises Saman. He's a photographer for Newsday, and last week he and a few other reporters came under suspicion by the authorities in Iraq, who detained them. They were eventually released and managed to make their way to Jordan, where they are now safe. About the Iraqi authorities, he says "They, for the most part, treated us fairly and in a humane way."

Speaking to reporters in Amman, McAllester said he feared for his life "every second."

"From the time we realized we were being taken to prison until the time we crossed the border into Jordan we felt our lives were in danger," he said.

"We had no idea what they were going to do to us," Bingham said. "They kept blindfolding us and taking us away. Every day it was a question of, are they going to kill me or are they just going to ask me more questions?"

The group had been held inside the Abu Ghraib prison since March 25, according to Charlotte Hall, Newsday's managing editor. An American peace activist, Philip Latasha, also was freed with the group, Hall said.

The journalists said they were taken from their hotels, their rooms were searched, and they were driven to the prison, the largest in the Arab world. At Abu Ghraib, they were separated and given prison clothes and two blankets.

"Over the next few days they interrogated us over and over," Bingham said. "We had to sign papers."

"They asked me a whole set of questions, about what kind of pictures I was taking, if I was involved with any kind of intelligence service, American or from any other countries, and basically just what was the purpose of me being in Baghdad at such a time," Saman said.

"We didn't know if anyone knew we were there, so we didn't know if people were going to bomb us for military reasons," she said.

The journalists slept on the hard, cold concrete floor in 6-by-11-foot cells, which they were not allowed to leave except "for toilet runs," Saman said.

Even so, Saman said of his captors: "They, for the most part, treated us fairly and in a humane way. They did feed us three meals a day, not much food, but enough. We weren't going hungry by any means."

After everything they went through, he still felt the need to make sure to include an obligatory disclaimer, to prove his detachment and to avoid actually seeming to make any kind of judgment. After their terrible peril, he could not bring himself to actually say what we all know: the government of Iraq is monstrously evil.

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