Anthony Shadid, who twice won the Pulitzer Prize for his international reporting, died recently from an asthma attack while walking behind some horses in Syria.
He reportedly was allergic to horses and had been a heavy smoker--a deadly combination for someone with breathing problems.
And though Mr. Shadid is no longer with us, his work as a journalist will never be forgotten. As I often say to my students, long after we and all our family members are gone, long after we've all turned to dust, the only thing that will bear witness to us is what we've written.
Our words, especially those that we write, tell a lot about who we are or were and what we believed in and accomplished, if anything.
Anthony Shadid (whose photo accompanies this blog post) made his mark with his journalism.
My mentor and good friend in Iowa City, Iowa, Ken Starck, wrote a piece about Shadid published a few days ago in a daily newspaper, the Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Gazette. Here is Ken's take on a journalist who for many years shined a light on the truth in a treacherous part of the world:
Anthony Shadid was as fine a human being as you'd ever want to meet.
He also was a great journalist.
Shadid died last week while documenting events in a troubled region of the world. His death reminds us of the debt we owe to those who risk their lives to bear witness to what happens in remote, sometimes alien, parts of the world.
I met Anthony twice. The first was in April 2006, a few months after he had left Iraq. He spoke to a group of our students and faculty at Zayed University in Dubai. His book Night Draws Near (2005) had just been published. The second time was in October 2007, again on the Zayed campus, when he spoke at a conference of Arab and US journalism educators.
I was not alone in taking an immediate liking to Anthony. He was personable. You could chat comfortably with him, oblivious to his growing reputation as arguably the best journalist reporting on the Middle East. He would twice win journalism's highest accolade, the Pulitzer Prize.
One of his tips to aspiring journalists was: “Listen. Really listen.” And he did. He was interested in what you had to say. If there were a Pulitzer for listening, he probably would have won that too.
But it was the quality of his writing that stood out. Here's the opening sentence of Night Draws Near: “Baghdad is a city of lives interrupted, its history a story of loss, waiting, and resilience.”
What often goes unnoticed in a journalist's repertoire is reporting—the simple yet not-so-simple task of gathering information. Consequential facts don't parade in plain sight. Good journalists uncover facts. They may draw wrong conclusions or make inappropriate inferences. But they do not make up stuff.
Integrity manifests itself in many forms. When Anthony, who was fluent in Arabic, came to Dubai, the US Embassy wanted to arrange a public event for him. He would have none of it. He said he wanted to avoid any such collaboration.
That was wise because while in the Emirates he reported on the exploitation of immigrant workers, a hyper-sensitive issue.
His story began: “A sweltering fog still shrouded the East Coast & Hamriah Co. labor camp when, dressed in the equivalent of their Sunday best, the migrant workers set out after dawn Tuesday. They didn't shower beforehand. Water was cut last year to their shantytown, now abandoned by their employer. They didn't eat breakfast. They have no electricity to cook” (“Migrant Workers Creating Splendor Are Abandoned With No Pay,” Washington Post Foreign Service, April 12, 2006).
Unlike the Emirates press, Shadid named names. And unlike some journalists, he saw for himself labor camp conditions and talked and listened to the laborers—not easy things to do in a tightly controlled society.
About the same time I was asked to contribute an essay to a book about the Danish cartoon controversy. The 12 cartoons depicted the Prophet Muhammad, an act prohibited by Muslims objecting to physical representation of the Prophet. Some 200 persons died in widespread protests. Two of my university colleagues who brought up the cartoons in class were fired in this struggle between free expression and religious respect.
I declined the invitation to contribute to the book—I'm a little embarrassed to admit this now—on grounds that I was employed by the government-funded Zayed University, and, hence, a guest of the country.
Anthony, meanwhile, ever faithful to the cause of bearing full and honest witness, had subjected himself often to danger.
In 2002 while on assignment on the West Bank, he was shot. Last year he was among three other New York Times journalists—he had joined the times in late 2009—captured and beaten and held for six days by Qaddafi forces in Libya. Their driver later was found dead.
It is sad irony that Anthony was to succumb to an asthma attack last Thursday (Feb. 16) while on a stealth reporting mission in Syria.
Journalists who risk their lives to keep us accurately and honestly informed deserve our gratitude and respect.
Anthony Shadid was 43.
(Editor's Note: Starck is a former Gazette ombudsman and director of the University of Iowa School of Journalism and Mass Communication. More recently he served as dean of the College of Communication and Media Sciences at Zayed University, United Arab Emirates. Now retired, he lives in Iowa City.)
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