The Price of Honesty

July 16th, 2004 · 1 Comment
by Booksquare

We’ve encountered this story twice — and fretted twice. So we thought we’d share the love with our friends and have a worry party. Maybe it’s because, once or twice, to escape hassle we have said “vacation” instead of “business” when traveling (it was a long time ago and we score a lot of sightseeing, so it wasn’t a complete lie). A journalist arrives in the United States with the proper visas — she’s thrown in jail. Now, she could have lied, but she, in her ignorance, told the truth. And went to jail. We realize things have changed in this world, but jail? Surely there was a better way to handle this? As more bloggers are seen as serious journalists, how does this bode for them when they travel? If the United States treats journalists this way, what of, oh, Saudi Arabia and the blogger who updates his site while in-country?

File Under: Books/Mags/Blogs

1 response so far ↓

  • Norma // Jul 18, 2004 at 2:55 am

    Here’s possibly the problem. Our gov’t apparently thinks journalists are workers/employees who may take jobs away from Americans, so thus they are treated like other workers and need a visa?