For journalists, conflicts are never glamorous

"Anthony Shadid of the New York Times, who died last week while surreptitiously slipping into Syria to assess first-hand the incipient civil war there, was the latest casualty in a long line of correspondents and photographers. He was struck by a fatal asthma attack."

The Hindu : Opinion / Op-Ed : For journalists, conflicts are never glamorous: At 43, he had already won two Pulitzer Prizes, the highest awards in American journalism. He could well have rested on his laurels and coasted along in his career, perhaps taking on assignments in less fraught regions. But he believed that journalists need to see for themselves how societies dealt with stress, and how people coped with the horrors inflicted on them by rulers. He believed that such reporting offered insights for a larger world audience, and the basis on which future historians would produce more substantive works.

Mr. Shadid had been put through the mill, as editors put it. He had been taught the importance of integrity and truthfulness in journalism; he had been steeped in the uncompromising value of deeply reported facts. He had been taught the difference between reportage and opinion, which unfortunately is diminishing in this era of internet journalism.

There's a lesson for journalists in the untimely death of Anthony Shadid: No matter how honoured you are as a journalist, you can never afford to abandon the fundamentals of the trade. You simply have to be there to cover the story. Even if it costs you your life.