What we owe intrepid journalist

By Ken Starck

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Anthony Shadid was as fine a human being as you'd ever want to meet. He also was a great journalist.

He died Feb. 16 while documenting events in a troubled region of the world. His death reminds us of the debt we owe to those who risk their lives to bear witness to what happens in remote, sometimes alien, locations.

I met Shadid twice. The first was in April 2006, a few months after he had left Iraq. He spoke to students and faculty at Zayed University in Dubai. His book, “Night Draws Near,” had just been published. The second time was in October 2007, again at Zayed, when he spoke at a conference of Arab and U.S. journalism educators.

You could chat comfortably with Shadid, oblivious to his growing reputation as the best journalist reporting on the Middle East. He would twice win journalism's Pulitzer Prize.

One of his tips to aspiring journalists was: “Listen. Really listen.” And he did. But it was the quality of his writing that stood out.

What often goes unnoticed in a journalist's repertoire is reporting - the simple yet not-so-simple task of gathering information. Good journalists uncover facts. They may draw wrong conclusions or make inappropriate inferences. But they do not make up stuff.

Integrity manifests itself in many forms. When Shadid, fluent in Arabic, came to Dubai, the U.S. Embassy wanted to arrange a public event for him. He would have none of it, wanting to avoid any such collaboration. That was wise. While in the Emirates, he reported on the exploitation of immigrant workers, a hypersensitive issue.

About the same time, I was asked to contribute an essay to a book about the Danish cartoon controversy. The 12 cartoons depicted the Prophet Muhammad, an act prohibited by Muslims objecting to physical representation of the Prophet. Two of my university colleagues who brought up the cartoons in class were fired in this struggle between free expression and religious respect.

I declined the invitation to contribute - I'm a little embarrassed to admit this now - on grounds that I was employed by the government-funded Zayed University, and, hence, a guest of the country.

Shadid, meanwhile, ever faithful to bearing full and honest witness, had subjected himself often to danger. In 2002, while on assignment on the West Bank, he was shot. Last year, he was among three other New York Times journalists captured, beaten and held for six days by Qaddafi forces in Libya.

It is sad irony that Shadid, at age 43, succumbed to an asthma attack while on a stealth reporting mission in Syria.

Ken Starck of Iowa City is a former Gazette ombudsman and director of the University of Iowa School of Journalism and Mass Communication. More recently he served as dean of the College of Communication and Media Sciences at Zayed University, United Arab Emirates. Comments: kenneth-starck@uiowa.edu