New York Times correspondent Anthony Shadid dies of apparent asthma attack working in Syria

[Ms. Toad]

NEW YORK — New York Times correspondent Anthony Shadid, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of Iraq and was detained in Libya for almost a week last year, died Thursday in eastern Syria while on a reporting assignment.

The cause of his death apparently was an asthma attack, the Times said. Times photographer Tyler Hicks was with him and carried his body to Turkey, it said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/new-york-times-correspondent-anthony-shadid-dies-of-apparent-asthma-attack-working-in-syria/2012/02/16/gIQAECEpIR_story.html

Links to some of his work:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/anthony-shadid-dies-in-syria-read-his-legacy-of-award-winning-work/2012/02/16/gIQAt3PpIR_blog.html

[Little Star]

1. That's sad. n/t

[glinda]

2. RIP...very sad....

[joshcryer]

3. RIP Anthony. He did good reporting on the Iraq War (a rare, sympathetic Iraqi view).

Also was detained in Libya for several days for reporting there (I see that's in the OP, though, I do remember that).

Here's a wonderful report Shadid wrote while in Iraq: http://ics-www.leeds.ac.uk/papers/vp01.cfm?outfit=pmt&folder=193&paper=271

Before the war, in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, one of the many things that made reporting there so difficult were the escorts - minders, in the language of journalists; guides, in the language of the government. They were dispatched by the information ministry to accompany any foreign reporter working in Iraq.

...

I inherited my minder from a colleague, and within a few hours of meeting him, with the prospect of a U.S.-led invasion of the country just a week away, I knew I was remarkably lucky.

...

We both understood that we were taking risks. "I'll be in prison," Nasir would say virtually every morning. "I'll be in prison tomorrow." And at times, we perhaps took too many risks. Just before U.S. troops arrived in Baghdad, we toured the outskirts of the city to gauge its defenses. We passed checkpoints, beyond the city's limits. The information ministry never knew of our trip, or so we thought. But the next day, I found my name on a list of fifty-two people to be expelled from Baghdad, and there were rumors - bluntly told to Nasir by his colleagues - that I was suspected of spying. With U.S. forces already on the outskirts, the order was too late and was never enforced, beyond a handwritten posting on the hotel wall.

[JI7]

4. is this something that could have been prevented ?

[LadyHawkAZ]

7. If he'd been nearer to a hospital, maybe

It looks like he was out in the middle of nowhere, and time is of the essence in a major attack.

[riverwalker]

5. terrible loss

one of the worlds best journalists, a REAL journalist. So sad. Two Pulitzers, amazing work, incredible career. He was even shot once in 2002 by Israeli troops while covering the West Bank.
http://boston.com/news/daily/31/reporter_shot.htm

[MannyGoldstein]

6. Tough guy, good guy.

I heard a long interview with him on NPR after his release from Syria. Brave person.

[EFerrari]

10. Amy re-aired her last long interview with him.

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/2/17/anthony_shadid_1968_2012_incomparable_pulitzer

[ellisonz]

8. Best wishes to the Shadid family...

[pampango]

9. New York Times slideshow on Shadid

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2012/02/16/obituaries/20120217_SHADID_HTML.html

Mr. Shadid, 43, had been reporting inside Syria for a week.

He spoke of the risks he took while reporting in an interview in December with Terry Gross on the NPR program “Fresh Air.” “I did feel that Syria was so important, and that story wouldn’t be told otherwise, that it was worth taking risks for,” he said of an earlier trip to Syria in which he entered the country from Lebanon on a motorcycle across a rugged stretch of land.