Friend Describes Abducted Journalist as Careful
Jan. 18, 2006 — -- Jill Carroll, the 28-year-old American journalist who is being held hostage in Iraq, was "very, very careful," said her friend Jackie Spinner, a correspondent for The Washington Post who knows Carroll from their work in Iraq.
Carroll, a freelance reporter for The Christian Science Monitor, was abducted Jan. 7 in one of Baghdad's most dangerous neighborhoods. Spinner said that "one of the things that is so heartbreaking" was that Carroll "loved the Iraqi people, she loved the country."
Most of Carroll's articles were about normal Iraqis struggling to survive, Spinner said.
"Jill understood there was no greater story as a journalist's," Spinner said, "no greater story in the world and I think she really identified with the Iraqi people."
On Tuesday, al Jazeera television aired a silent, 20-second video that featured Carroll and said her abductors gave the United States 72 hours to free female prisoners in Iraq or she would be killed.
Watching a video of Carroll, her friend and neighbor, Spinner said that she was "seeing every journalist's worst nightmare," Spinner said.
"Of all the dangers we faced, this is the worst," she said.
Spinner survived a near-abduction outside Abu Ghraib prison and wrote about it in her book "Tell Them I Didn't Cry."
"Unfortunately, the U.S.' posture has always been that they're not going to bargain," Spinner said, "and all of us there [in Iraq] know that and understand that and I think deep down Jill, wherever she is, understands."
Carroll, a native of Ann Arbor, Mich., moved to Iraq three years ago as a freelance journalist. Carroll wrote mostly for the Monitor, but also worked for US News & World Report and an Italian news agency. Before she moved to Iraq, she worked in Jordan for The Jordan Times.
"We're dealing to some extent with an unreasonable insurgency. Journalists should have immunity," Spinner said. "We shouldn't be part of the political situation there and yet we are."
So, what can be done?
"Frankly, you pray," Spinner said. "My heart goes out to her family, her sister, her parents. I can only imagine what this must be doing to them."
Spinner said she had e-mailed with Carroll shortly before she was kidnapped. They had been planning a surfing vacation to escape the stress in Iraq. Carroll had learned to surf recently in Bali.
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