Why is attention paid to some journalists in captivity but not other?

The release of Bilal Hussein, a member of the AP team that won a Pulitzer Prize for photography in 2005, held without charge in Iraq for two years, went almost entirely unnoticed. When the British journalist Richard Butler was mercifully freed after in Iraq for two months, his rescue was given widespread coverage.

Writes Maddy Ryle at Media Workers against the war adding that only the Guardian and Press Gazette covered his release or that of Sami Al-Haj who

received little sustained support or coverage from his colleagues in the media. This is despite the fact that he is the only journalist in Guantánamo and he was offered no opportunity to refute the US government’s charge of being an “enemy combatant”.

Moreover

Dozens of journalists – mostly Iraqis – have been detained by US troops over the last three years, according to the Committee for the Protection of Journalists. While most have been released after short periods, in at least eight cases documented by CPJ Iraqi journalists have been held by US forces for weeks or months without charge. Several of the detainees were photojournalists who initially drew the military’s attention because of what they had filmed or photographed.