Pulitzer Prize Winning New York Times Correspondent Dies in Syria
Anthony Shadid, a correspondent for the New York Times, has died in Syria. He was on assignment for the newspaper and is believed to have suffered a fatal asthma attack. Shadid was a two time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize – in 2004 and 2010. He was also nominated last year for his work on covering the uprisings in Arab world.
Shadid was an American of Lebanese descent and had reported on the invasion of Iraq by the United States, as well as the subsequent years afterwards. He was working for the Washington Post then. Last year, he was detained by the Gaddafi government – along with two other journalists for the New York Times – and was held for over a week. According to Jill Abramson, who is the executive editor for the New York Times, Shadid died bearing witness to what has been happening in the Middle East. That, Abramson said, was how he would have wanted it.
Shadid spoke Arabic fluently and was inside Syria gathering information about the crackdown by Syrian President Bashar Assad against anti-government protesters. His colleague and photographer, Tyler Hicks, said that he and Shadid were walking towards with Turkey/Syria border. The two men were following some horses and Shadid began to show the symptoms of an asthma attack. He died only a few minutes later. Hicks carried Shadid’s body into Turkey.
Shadid’s work was not without peril. In 2002, he was shot in the shoulder while in the West Bank. He was working for The Globe when that happened. His colleagues would remember a man who had a sophisticated and profound understanding of the Arab world. He focused on how people’s lives were affected by events around the world and he didn’t always focus on diplomacy. This would be one of the reasons why the New York Times would nominate him for the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting. The winners will be announced in April.
