OKLAHOMA CITY — The cousin of the late New York Times correspondent Anthony Shadid challenged editors Saturday to do more to protect reporters in dangerous situations, telling mourners at a memorial service that journalists should have what they need to survive.
“There is a danger for future journalists of focusing on bravery and that many will feel that to get ahead, to be the next Anthony Shadid, they must take risks,” Ed Shadid said.
Ed Shadid was among more than 1,000 people who gathered at the Civic Center in Anthony Shadid’s native Oklahoma City for the memorial. The longtime correspondent in the Middle East for The Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe and The Associated Press died last month at age 43 of an apparent asthma attack while on assignment in Syria.
“Anthony, my son, my hero, my love, my golden boy, I’ve had nightmares for several years now that somebody would call me and say that Anthony was hurt,” Shadid’s father, Buddy, told the crowd through tears.
New York Times photojournalist Tyler Hicks, who was working with Shadid in Syria and carried his body from the country after his death, said journalists prepare themselves for violence during such assignments and take items such as medical kits and tourniquets with them.
Hicks described the allergies triggered by horses that led to Shadid’s apparent asthma attack in an article published Saturday in The Times. “It turned out the real danger was not the weapons but possibly the horses. Anthony was allergic. He did not know how badly.”
“It was nature that took him, not hostile action,” Hicks said after the memorial. “In Anthony’s case, there wasn’t anything that could have prepared us for what happened.”
