David Rohde escapes to freedom. Another way to solve hostage-taking

The escape to freedom of New York Times reporter David Rohde and local journalist Tahir Ludin, is great news. David is one of the finest U.S. journalists, someone dedicated to digging up the truth and holding all governments accountable. His work in Bosnia has been one of the most compelling and led him to a well-deserved Pulitzer Prize, thanks in particular to his coverage of the Srebrenica massacre and his indictment of the passivity of the international community.
This story requires reflection on how to deal with kidnappings of journalists. David Rohde, with the endorsement of his paper and his family, knew that he was taking risks to cover the Afghan war. And the decision to try and get the information was certainly the right one. There was no folly or irresponsibility here.
However the way the NY Times decided to deal with this abduction is a break with other cases, like the highly publibicized cases of French reporters Florence Aubenas, Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot. All media and press freedom organizations, in particular the New-York based Committee to Protect Journalists (www.cpj.org) that were told by the Times to keep silent kept their promises and decided not to campaign publicly for the release.
Is it the right model? This very good news is a great opportunity for journalists' organizations to revisit the issue of abductions and what to do about them.
The answer has never been to stay away from risky zones. Wars, mass crimes and tragedies have to be reported. Journalists are not candy sellers, they know they are in a sometimes dangerous trade. The answer to the attempts by rogue governments or non-state actors to control the news by intimidation is neither retreat nor self-censorship. It requires very careful measures to assure that journalists and their employers take all the necessary precautions and think "outside of the box" to get the news.
Both models -publicity and secrecy- have succeeded in bringing back hostages to freedom. It is time now to analyze all the scenarios to draw lessons for best practices.
The world needs journalism and especially journalists like David and Tahir that go out and get the real story and do not limit themselves to comment and "punditize"on the basis of trash news and junk info retrieved from the Internet.