Anthony Shadid 1968 - 2012

Photo by Peter Barreras

Anthony Shadid, Senior Middle East correspondent for the New York Times has died in Syria. Tony was a alum of The Daily Cardinal. The winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, The Times has nominated him and his colleagues for a third as part of their Arab Spring reporting team this year.

Anthony Sansone, president of The Daily Cardinal Alumni Association, issued the following statement:

Anthony Shadid was what we wanted to be; what we want journalists to be: resourceful in getting the story and dedicated to seeking the truth. Anthony was a gifted writer and an incredibly resourceful reporter.

When honored for the second time at the DCAA's 2005 Awards Dinner for his first Pulitzer Prize, he said that working at the Daily Cardinal was the hardest job he ever had. This was after being shot in Rumullah and covering the Iraq War.

He always made time for the Cardinal and its staff whenever he could, whenever he was in town or whenever he could take a call or reply to an email. He loved talking to the students. He loved journalism. He loved the Cardinal.

Looking to the Cardinal's 120th Anniversary in April, he wrote to the DCAA:  "I can't believe I'm missing the 120th anniversary. I'll have to make sure to be there for the 125th. Good luck. I'll be with you all in spirit."

Yes, he will.

He is one of us. He was the best of us. We loved him. And we will miss him.

Fellow Cardinal alum Paul Norton posted:

Here's an Anthony comment we can all treasure: "The Cardinal days seem like so long ago, but they really were the place we all became who we are."

Tony's new book will be out next month, House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East.  According to the book’s blurb:

“Last spring, when Tony—one of four New York Times reporters captured in Libya as the region erupted—was freed, he went home. Not to Boston, Beirut, or Oklahoma where he was raised by his Lebanese-American family, but to an ancient estate built by his great-grandfather, a place filled with memories of a lost era when the Middle East was a world of grace, grandeur, and unexpected departures.

"For two years previous, Shadid had worked to reconstruct the house and restore his spirit after both had weathered war. Now the author of the award-winning Night Draws Near (National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, Los Angeles Times Book Prize) tells the story of the house’s re-creation, revealing its mysteries and recovering the lives that have passed through it. Shadid juxtaposes past and present as he traces the house’s renewal along with his family’s flight from Lebanon and resettlement in America.

"House of Stone is an unforgettable memoir of the world’s most volatile landscape and the universal yearning for home.”

The DCAA and the University of Wisconsin Foundation will be making an announcement about a scholarship in Anthony Shadid's memory in the next few weeks.