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Rev. Jackson to Help Search for Newsday Journalists



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Mar 31, 2003 4:31 am US/Eastern
(1010 WINS) (NEW YORK) The Rev. Jesse Jackson has agreed to assist in the search for two Newsday journalists who disappeared from a Baghdad hotel last week.

Jackson said family members of correspondent Matthew McAllester, 33, and photographer Moises Saman, 29, asked him Sunday to help locate the two men and negotiate their release.

Saman and McAllester, Newsday's United Nations Bureau Chief, have been out of contact with editors since last Monday, when they e-mailed to say they would be filing material. Newsday reported Saturday that it believes the two have been detained by the Iraqi government.

Jackson said he told the families that he hopes to lead a delegation of religious leaders to Baghdad in hopes of securing the release of the two journalists, as well as U.S. prisoners of war and other people missing in Iraq.

"Both of them have called me. They are going public in their appeal for support, and we've met with some of the other families since that time, as well," Jackson told Newsday in Monday editions. "We surely want to do anything we can do."

Jane McAllester, Matthew's sister, said she reached out to Jackson because of his past success in places like Baghdad and Yugoslavia, where he helped win the release of captured U.S. citizens and prisoners of war, respectively.

Journalists expelled from Iraq have told Newsday that security officials came last Monday to the Baghdad hotel where McAllester and Saman were staying and questioned reporters. Some were taken from the hotel.

No one saw McAllester and Saman removed, but their room was empty when a friend went to check on them, Newsday has been told.

A freelance photographer from Louisville, Molly Bingham, is also unaccounted for.