As Politico reported and several friends have communicated to me, the late Anthony Shadid’s cousin Ed Shadid gave a very dignified commemoration at the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee’s gathering on the weekend in which he accused the New York Times of killing the renowned Arab-American writer by twisting his arm to go into Syria last February on a reporting assignment that he regarded as highly risky.
Ed Shadid:
“The phone call the night before he left [Turkey for Syria], there was screaming and slamming down the phone in discussions with editors. As he got to Turkey and the plans began to fall apart… There weren’t motorcycles [he had arranged to be there]…
“It was at this time that he called his wife and gave his last haunting directive that if anything happens to me I want the world to know the New York Times killed me.”
The speech is igniting a quiet firestorm about journalism and risk. The New York Times has denied the allegation:
“The Times does not pressure reporters to go into combat zones. Anthony was an experienced, motivated correspondent. He decided whether, how and when to enter Syria, and was told by his editors, including on the day of the trip, that he should not make the trip if he felt it was not advisable for any reason.”
I happen to be on the Times’s side on this inasmuch as I believe journalism is often a dangerous undertaking, and grownups have to make decisions for themselves. Journalists gain glory by undertaking dangerous assignments. Shadid had been shot by the Israelis years before.
That said, I don’t think the issue will go away. There is bound to more scrutiny of these editorial decisions. Six years ago my editors at New York Magazine stopped me as I was buying my ticket to Iraq, on assignment, because they were being prudent and didn’t want me or their magazine to bear the risk. I was relieved. It is important to hear from Shadid’s widow, Nada Bakri, a Times correspondent. She tweeted the following a half hour ago:
“I do not approve of and will not be a part of any public discussion of Anthony’s passing. It does nothing but sadden Anthony’s children to have to endure repeated public discussion of the circumstances of their father’s death.”
(One way we can honor Shadid, I think, it to focus more on the many Mexican reporters who are right now dying to get out the truth. And give them support by examining the truth on this side of the border.)
very simple to get past the emotions of this and look to the facts – do non-muslims, and particularly jews on the NYTimes staff in similar situations get any different treatment? [was Shadid a Lebanese christian or muslim, I dunno] … private security detail, intelligence briefing, weapon(s), special budget for hiring of security? … if it can be factually shown that jewish or non-muslim reporters sent to foreign/war assignments get different treatment then Shadids brother’s comment bears looking into, otherwise he is a man stricken with grief and full of emotion who has made a wild allegation because he’s upset
if anything happens to me I want the world to know the New York Times killed me
whether it was true or not is not for me to say. he should not have gone if this was the case. there are things about his death i found really questionable. but i respect a person’s wishes. if those are his wishes, his cousin has the responsibility to say what he said, not to keep silent.
During the 2003 Iraq war, the straight media were embedding reporters with the govt and military as quasi-PR agents. Now, they apparently order them on paramilitary missions where they are expendable, even someone of Shadid’s accomplishments. All that matters is the editorial appetite of the moment, how horrible that it claimed Shadid, with his unique skills and background.
The NYT is a propaganda rag. I am repeatedly disappointed by the Hasbara in the NYT that which passes for “journalism”.
If the NYT cared so much about journalism, how come it hasn’t sent reporters to cover what is going on INSIDE Gaza? Why was it that during operation Burning-You-with-White-Phosphorus the NYT’s coverage consisted of stenography from the Israeli Jerusalem office?
Moreover, if the NYT truly cared about Shadid, they wouldn’t have sent him on such a suicide mission. But he’s Ay-rab and therefore disposable in their view.
Anthony and Edward Shadid are Christians whose family originates from the South of Lebanon.
I agree with what you wrote, Phil. We can agree that any journalist who risks his life in a war zone deserves our admiration.
I used to work as a television news producer. I have been on both sides of the editorial desk when it comes to being a journalist deciding whether to cover a story that could get them killed. Assuming that Ed Shadid’s account is accurate, the NYT is being disingenuous in suggesting that media (and specifically the Times in this case) do not “pressure reporters to go into combat zones.” Such statements are the standard fall-back position of corporate spokespersons.
The editorial desks fully understand the pressure journalists in the field experience in the interests of professionalism and pride in their work when faced with the choice whether to accept an assignment, regardless of what the desk editors say about the final decision being that of the journalist alone. Journalists feel that they have let themselves, the desk, and the profession down, whenever they refuse an assignment. So, on balance, journalists in the field are likely to accept dangerous assignments.
A good desk editor does not leave it up to the journalist in the field to decide in the final instance whether to accept a dangerous assignment. The desk and the journalist in the field must agree on the value of the story and the risks of covering it. From my reading of Ed Shadid’s account of his cousin’s experience with his editor(s) at the NYT this was not the case. Moreover, in the case of doubt and disagreement, the story should not have been pursued, unless the journalist, against the advice (or orders) of the desk, insisted on pursuing it. Again, this does not seem to have been the case with the NYT.
Finally, former NYT editor Bill Keller’s claim that “great journalists always go” is the kind of nostalgia for a journalism that has never been that will only continue to get journalists in the field killed unless tempered. Protection of journalists in the field will only begin when editors begin to take some responsibility for the decisions they off-load onto the people who answer to them.