Fresh Air Remembers War Reporter Anthony Shadid

It is with great sadness that we report the sudden death of a frequent Fresh Air guest.New York Times foreign correspondent Anthony Shadid suffered a fatal asthma attack yesterday in Syria, where he was reporting on the political uprising….[complete remembrance here]

Heartbroken over the news that New York Times reporter Anthony Shadid died in Syria yesterday. Shadid was on Fresh Air six times, most recently this past December, where he talked about covering the Arab Spring. We’ll be devoting a portion of the show today to remember him.

Update 10:50 AM: The entire first half of the show will rebroadcast portions of Shadid’s December 2011 conversation on Fresh Air. Shadid, a frequent FA guest, suffered a fatal asthma attack yesterday in Syria, where he was reporting on the political uprising. The two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner was just 43-years-old, and leaves behind a wife and two small children.

On Wednesday’s Fresh Air, Anthony Shadid talks extensively about his reporting in the Middle East, including Syria, where many journalists have been denied entry visas. Shadid and photographer Moises Saman crossed the border on motorcycles along what he calls “a lawless strip of terrain” in order to get across the border and cover the protests.

Photo: Moises Saman for The New York Times. The rest of Saman’s images can be found here.

I remember, it remains one of the scariest moments of my life, … you just have to make peace very quickly with the idea that it’s over. And I remember looking up at that soldier and he says, ‘Shoot them’ in Arabic and you just lose every sensation at that point.

— On today’s Fresh Air, New York Times war correspondent Anthony Shadid describes being captured and beaten by Gadhafi’s forces in Libya last March. 

4 Times Journalists Held Captive in Libya Faced Days of Brutality

In March, veteran foreign correspondent Anthony Shadid and three other journalists were held and beaten by security forces in Libya. On today’s Fresh Air, Shadid talks about his experiences in Libya and why he decided to continue reporting from conflict zones. In the past year, he’s covered the Arab uprisings in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Bahrain and Tunisia. Before that, he covered the Iraq War for nearly a decade. 

nickbilton:

Reporters gather in the NYT newsroom to welcome back 4 Journalists who were held hostage in Libya.

New York Times: Four Journalists Missing In Libya

The New York Times just reported that four of its journalists in Libya haven’t been heard from since Tuesday morning. One of the missing journalists — Anthony Shadid, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, was on Fresh Air in September to talk about the war in Iraq. The other journalists include videographer Stephen Farrell and photographers Tyler Hicks and Lynsey Addario. 

The Americans invaded a country without understanding what eight years of a war with Iran had meant, how that traumatized Iraq. They didn’t appreciate what they support for a decade of sanctions in Iraq had done to Iraq and the bitterness that it created and that it wiped out the middle class. They didn’t understand what Saddam represented in some ways to the Iraqi people as well. The 70s weren’t the awful times when Saddam came to power. The awful time was the 90s when the sanctions were eviscerating the country. That almost willful lack of understanding history has had a really unfortunate impact on what’s followed.

— Anthony Shadid on Fresh Air with Terry Gross, on understanding the history of the Middle East.

New York Times reporter Anthony Shadid on the past seven years in Iraq: “What strikes me … is how much 2003 feels familiar to me in 2010. I think there’s often been for us in the United States this linear narrative: things unfolding one after another and we end with the withdrawal at the end of 2011. But I think what often transpires in Iraq is something more circular, more repetitive. And what you hear in 2010 is what you often heard in 2003: that there is no electricity, that the water is filthy, that there’s sewage in the streets, that they’re not sure that of the intentions of the Americans and what Iraq officials can do to better their lives. Those things were said in 2003 and they’re still said today. The lives of Iraqis — is miserable too strong a word? I’m not sure. It’s incredibly difficult and the city [of Baghdad] itself is a barricaded, deteriorating capital that is as grim as any place I’ve seen anywhere else. And Iraqis feel that. And I think it hurts their pride to see what’s happened to the city. I think it feeds the anxiety of what’s ahead. I’m not sure what the word is — sadness? — about what’s happened these past seven years.” (Photo: AP)