Anthony Shadid, who for nearly 20 years covered the Middle East for The New York Times, Washington Post and Associated Press, died recently while covering the government’s violent crackdown in Syria. The PBS Newshour has a powerful tribute to him, well worth watching.
Here’s what his former editor at the Washington Post, David Hoffman, said about him:
What made his writing great was his reporting. He was one of the most relentless and tireless reporters I ever worked for. And only after he had listened to hundreds of hours of people talking and after he had filled notebooks — literally buckets full of notebooks — with things he had seen and smelled and heard, did he actually sit down to write. As one of his friends said, “He’s one of those people who wrote poetry on deadline.
There’s also a tribute to Shadid by various people who worked with him or read his stories, on The New York Times, including these comments by Bill Keller, columnist and former executive editor of The Times:
First, he understood the basic rule of reporting: always go. He went to places that were inaccessible and dangerous and miserable — not as a daredevil or adrenaline junkie, not recklessly, often reluctantly, always with the most meticulous and careful planning — but he knew you had to be there. You had to see it. It’s nice that people call him a poet, but poets can write around the holes in a story. Anthony was first and foremost a witness — an incomparable, reliable witness.
