You know, that might be a little bit arrogant or conceited. I think at each time you make these decisions-say, in Baghdad in 2003, in Lebanon in 2006, you know, as you pointed out, in Ramallah in 2002-you think that if you’re not there, that the story won’t be told. I think now, finally, is the moment that we see that is transformative in the Arab world, and it does make you even more, I think, eager, in some ways, to cover, to try to bring meaning to it, to witness it. You know, I’ve been covering it for 15 years. I think you have to cover conflict when it’s part of what you do cover. Why do you keep going back to war zones?ĪNTHONY SHADID: You know, not to be flip, but it’s kind of pretty much the only thing I know how to do-not cover conflict. Shortly after he was released, Anthony Shadid appeared on Democracy Now!ĪMY GOODMAN: What makes you keep going back? You were shot in the shoulder in the West Bank in 2002. They were held for six days, beaten before being released. Last March, Shadid and three other New York Times journalists were kidnapped in Libya by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s forces. occupation of Iraq for the Washington Post. In 2002, he was shot while reporting in Ramallah in the West Bank for the Boston Globe.

Shadid’s work often entailed great peril. An allergy to horses set off the fatal asthma attack. He died as he was attempting to sneak back into Turkey.

Described as the “most gifted foreign correspondent in a generation,” the 43-year-old Shadid had been reporting inside Syria for a week, gathering information on the Free Syrian Army and other elements of the armed resistance to the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Three weeks ago, the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times foreign correspondent Anthony Shadid died of an apparent asthma attack while reporting on the conflict in Syria.

House of Stone by Anthony Shadid