Top Journalists Honor Legacy of Anthony Shadid at Cambridge Friends School

CAMBRIDGE, MA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Cambridge Friends School will host an evening discussion honoring the legacy of Anthony Shadid, the late journalist who uniquely captured the spirit of the people of the Middle East, employing insight and elegant prose to move readers to a greater understanding of the human impact of war and the remarkable events of the Arab Spring. Acclaimed journalists Robin Young, host of WBUR's Here & Now, Phil Bennett, managing editor of PBS's FRONTLINE, and James Smith, former foreign editor of The Boston Globe, will engage in a roundtable conversation about Shadid's approach to journalism and what he revealed about the Middle East.

“The choice of locale at Cambridge Friends School would have been meaningful to Anthony, who was planning to speak about his new book, ‘House of Stone,' at our school—which his daughter attends,” said Peter Sommer, head, Cambridge Friends School. “Anthony not only believed in a more socially just world. He bore witness to the housewives and young girls and street vendors, the small human beings just trying to live decent lives in the shadow of war. For a Quaker, to ‘witness' is to let one's life speak, to stand up for a truth or a deeply held belief. At CFS, we encourage and teach our students to witness. We hope that they, like Anthony Shadid, will challenge oppression, contributing to justice and understanding in the world.”

Personal Connection

The evening's three speakers all shared a personal connection with Shadid. Phil Bennett, Shadid's editor at The Washington Post from 2003-2009, worked closely with Shadid during the invasion of Iraq in 2003. “Anthony had a unique talent for getting behind events to give a human face to what was happening in the Middle East,” said Bennett. “He was the first American journalist to win the Pulitzer Prize for covering civilians on the receiving end of violence suffered in an American war. That's never happened before, and I do not know that it will happen again. It is just one of the many reasons why I, like many of my colleagues, considered Anthony one of the most influential journalists of his generation.”

James Smith was foreign editor at The Boston Globe when Anthony was covering Jerusalem and the West Bank in 2002. Now communications director at Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Smith commented on Shadid's journalistic style. “Anthony was never deterred by checkpoints or national borders. He got to the story, wherever it was happening. He wasn't careless; he understood the risks he was facing and weighed them closely,” said Smith. “But risks were inevitable for a reporter who needed to see and hear for himself. He learned Arabic, reclaiming his own Lebanese heritage, so that he could speak to Arabs himself, unfiltered.”

An appreciation for Shadid's unfiltered approach to reporting made him a frequent guest of Robin Young on Here & Now. Young had spoken with Shadid about the human “devastation and trauma in Iraq,” his kidnap in Libya in 2011, and the meaning of Bin Laden's death for Arab youths, among other topics.

Registration Information

The Cambridge Friends School seminar, “The Middle East and The Legacy of Anthony Shadid,” will take place Thursday, April 5, 2012, at 7:00 p.m. at Cambridge Friends School, 5 Cadbury Road, Cambridge, MA. The seminar is free and open to the public. Advance registration is highly recommended.

The event is sponsored in part by Porter Square Books—which will sell copies of “House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East” during the seminar. Porter Square Books will donate a portion of the evening's proceeds to Cambridge Friends School.

About Cambridge Friends School

Cambridge Friends School (CFS), the only Quaker school in Massachusetts, is a co-educational elementary school enrolling 211 students in pre-K through grade 8. Established in 1961 under the care of Friends Meeting at Cambridge, Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), CFS's mission is to provide an outstanding education. Guided by Quaker principles—universal values such as equality, simplicity and peace—CFS engages students in meaningful academic learning within a caring community strongly committed to social justice. CFS encourages all students to develop their intellectual, physical, creative and spiritual potential and, through the example of their lives, to challenge oppression and to contribute to justice and understanding in the world.

For more information, visit: www.cfsmass.org.