The Final Sacrifice

Anthony Shadid

Anthony Shadid grew up in Oklahoma City, where his last name was pronounced Shah-ded and his father went by Buddy. By the time of his death Feb. 16 at 43, from an asthma attack on a smugglers’ trail leading out of Syria, he had become the most admired American journalist of his generation, treasured by readers and esteemed by colleagues for his lyrical illumination of Arab identity. He won two Pulitzer Prizes at the Washington Post for his coverage of Iraq and is nominated for another for bringing the Arab Spring to life in the pages of the New York Times. But Shadid’s glory was a transcendent humanity that made protagonists of the everyday Egyptians, Iraqis and Tunisians whose stories he presented as essential reading.

Fluent in Arabic, which he studied in Cairo, Shadid was driven by a nearly invisible ambition that generated excellence even as he threw off personal warmth. In the Post’s Baghdad bureau, writers tended to work in their rooms, batting away interruptions. Shadid kept his door open and, at the sound of an approaching visitor, swiveled in one fluid motion from his keyboard to exclaim, “Ustaz! Professor!” “The thing I like most about Arab culture,” he once said, “is that no one can enter a room without being acknowledged.” Pay attention. Everyone matters.

Rmi Ochlik

Rmi Ochlik, an award-winning French photojournalist, was only 28 when he died Feb. 22, after government forces shelled a building from which foreign journalists were covering the siege in Homs, Syria. For Ochlik the horrors he witnessed during last year’s Arab Spring came as he was just beginning his career. His coverage earned him huge praise, including first prize in the General News category of the World Press Photo contest. He arrived in Syria just a day before he was killed. Ochlik recently said that as a boy he dreamed of being an archaeologist “for the travels, the adventure,” but changed his mind after his grandfather gave him his first camera. Through the lens he captured ghastly atrocities. Tragically, the final one he witnessed ended the life of a gifted storyteller when his own story had barely begun.

Marie Colvin

Marie Colvin, an American who was one of Britain’s most honored combat journalists, was killed when Syrian forces bombed a makeshift media center in the besieged city of Homs. At 56, Colvin was no novice at witnessing sickening events. She was herself a victim of violence, having lost her left eye after coming under government fire in Sri Lanka in 2001. While many might have sought a prosthetic eye, Colvin chose instead to wear a black eye patch, something of a badge of honor for conflict journalism, instantly making her the most distinctive reporter in any combat zone. “We always have to ask ourselves whether the level of risk is worth the story,” she said in 2010. Shaken by these losses, many journalists will be wrestling with that question in the days and weeks ahead.