Media Watch, part II

Score another one for the New York Times, whose national news desk grudgingly gets my nod today. Although the national desk missed the enemy combatant aspect in the John Walker Lindh story, today's paper has a small article reporting that Judge Robert G. Doumar, a Federal District Judge in Norfolk, VA, has ordered that by next week, prosecutors must justify the continued detention of Yasser Esam Hamdi without charges. Prosecutors have taken the position that "enemy combatants" may be held without charges as long as we are at war. According to the article, the judge is concerned that since the "war" is an ongoing war on terrorism, and not a declared war, the government's position means that Hamdi could be detained forever.

Based on my highly unscientific survey (in which I surfed major-media websites CNN, Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer and MSNBC), it appears that other mainstream news outlets did not pick up the story. Go figure.