The death of New York Times correspondent Anthony Shadid, 43, on Thursday, from an apparent asthma attack while on a reporting trip in Syria, has deprived American journalism of its most gifted foreign correspondent in a generation.
His coverage of the Middle East — from Iraq, Lebanon, Libya and beyond — was, simply, the best. He set the standard. If you cared about the region, if you really wanted to understand what was going on, you read Anthony.
His colleagues got it. He won two Pulitzers in a six-year span, in 2004 and 2010. His first was a result, according to the Pulitzer board, of “his extraordinary ability to capture, at personal peril, the voices and emotions of Iraqis as their country was invaded, their leader toppled and their way of life upended.”
He found humanity amid the rubble, compassion in the tableau of violence. He wrote about war by focusing on people, revealing their lives in elegiac prose.
Shadid, an American of Lebanese descent, never let the plaudits go to his head. He could have had his choice of cushy assignments in Europe or the United States. He could have become a successful commentator or analyst. But his heart was in the Middle East — and in the story.
He stayed in Baghdad through the shock-and-awe bombing campaign, traveled through southern Lebanon during the 2006 war and Israeli invasion, and was kidnapped in Libya with three other New York Times journalists — but he was no adrenaline junkie. He did it because he wanted to know what was really happening. And that couldn’t be gleaned from a distance.
“Anthony was one of our generation’s finest reporters,” said Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger. “He was also an exceptionally kind and generous human being. He brought to his readers an up-close look at the globe’s many war-torn regions, often at great personal risk. We were fortunate to have Anthony as a colleague, and we mourn his death.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
