NP: Syria, part 6

[David Morris]

Portrait of a Monster

On Mon, Nov 18, 2019 at 7:21 PM jody2.718 via Pynchon-l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
wrote:

> How did reporting on Syria change over the course of the seven years that
> you reported this story?
>
> There were a lot of things that evolved over time. Syria ended up
> becoming, in some ways, the most documented conflict maybe in history. What
> changed over time was that we were able to build amazing networks, really
> on all sides of the conflict, where we could have unprecedented real-time
> access to people in places that we couldn’t physically reach.
>
> But, at the same time, the physical access has waxed and waned. The
> government is very unpredictable about when and if it will give a visa to
> go to their side. We used to have a team inside the rebel-held territories
> all the time. And then that stopped when the bombing from the government
> got so intense and the risk of kidnapping increased. Then at some point the
> New York Times didn’t let people go anymore. Then it became possible to go
> sometimes into Kurdish-held areas, but not always.
>
> So it’s really been a mixed bag in terms of access, but I also think that
> one thing that’s happened is that, certainly, over the last year, the
> interest in day-to-day coverage and even enterprise coverage has really
> decreased. And that’s one of the reasons I wanted to do this piece. Now,
> more than ever, it’s important to keep this in focus and not forget about
> it, as the world thinks that the war is over and they’re moving on and
> they’re even considering normalizing relations with this government. We
> have to know what it is that they’re normalizing with.
>
> -
>
> By:
>
> -
>
> Isaac Chotiner is a staff writer at The New Yorker, where he is the
> principal contributor to Q. & A., a series of timely interviews with major
> public figures in politics, media, books, business, technology, and more
>
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>