Carroll Colleague: Early Blackout On Abduction Paid Off

By: Joe Strupp Now that Christian Science Monitor reporter Jill Carroll has been released, at least one of her colleagues who helped lead the controversial early media blackout of her kidnapping believes it made a difference.

Borzou Daragahi, a Los Angeles Times Baghdad correspondent, was among the reporters who urged U.S. news outlets not to report on Carroll's Jan. 7 abduction during a 48-hour media silence that drew some criticism. He now says that initial delay allowed Carroll's supporters to carefully release information about her that promoted the most positive image. Included was a widely-published photo, taken by his wife.

"I was heavily involved in the initial effort to keep a low profile, keep a lid on the news," Daragahi said just hours after Carroll's freedom was revealed. "And part of the campaign to pursue a certain image of her - who she is, a very, very serious-minded person."

Daragahi said the delay in news reporting about her abduction gave "some measure over control of the message and time to figure out a media strategy. It gave us time to portray her in a way as the serious journalist she is before the media got a hold of one of her ex-boyfriends or something."

Daragahi pointed to the now-famous head shot of a smiling Carroll in dark, Middle Eastern women's garb that became the image of her during three months in captivity. He said his wife, Delphine Minoui, a freelance journalist based in Baghdad, had taken the photo last September at the Baghdad convention center, where much of the new Iraqi government business was being conducted. She and Carroll were there together on Sept. 5, 2005.

The original photo, which included an unidentified Iraqi woman, was taken in a convention center bathroom and later cropped by Daragahi to show only Carroll. "I cropped out everything except the picture of Jill looking smiling and nice," he said. "I only showed her looking very pious, that was the value of the picture."

E&P is publishing the uncropped photo for the first time that we know of.

He said his wife and Carroll had met the woman in the bathroom. "It was just a funny moment at the time that they were sharing," he recalled. "They saw this Iraqi woman who wasn't dressed like an Iraqi and Jill, who is not Iraqi, was dressed like an Iraqi. It was a funny moment."

Daragahi stressed, however, the importance of the early blackout, noting that, along with the photo, Carroll's colleagues also were able to present her image as something positive, which he says it was. "It helped give people time to decide how to do this," he says. "What to emphasize about Jill."

David Cook, the Monitor's Washington, D.C. bureau chief and lead spokesman for the paper about Carroll's kidnapping, would not credit the early blackout fully with her eventual safe release. But he indicated that such an approach likely helped. "We did it because it seemed like the most prudent, careful thing to do," he told E&P. "I'm glad she got out safely. Seeing how it turned out, I'm glad we were as cautious as we were."