It was almost dark on the Syria-Lebanon border. Like most border crossings, there were the nondescript, almost decrepit, colorless office buildings just beyond the armed guard passageways where everyone had to enter for passport control. For the group on the bus that had just pulled up, it was going to be at least an hour-long wait. But there was no time for boredom among the passengers: with laptops propped on the gray concrete barriers separating the border from the road, a group of thirteen men and women who make decisions about foreign news for some of America’s leading news organizations energetically typed their stories with a single-minded passion. It was almost deadline back in the States.

There is something about filing a story that animates a reporter and transforms a group of thoughtful individuals into a pulsating, animated force. Newspeople seem to get their nourishment from knowing that an article they are working on will soon get into the paper or on the air. And this group had a story guaranteed to attract attention: President Bashar al-Assad, the son of the long-time Syrian dictator, had given them 90 minutes for what was billed as a briefing, but which later morphed from an off-the-record conversation into a major newsmaking event.

The day before, the United States had imposed long-talked about sanctions against Syria for what the government described as Syria’s continuing support for terrorism. In this context, the fact that The Boston Globe, Knight Ridder, USA Today, the Baltimore Sun, Newsweek.com and even the far-reaching Associated Press had their own journalists on the spot to question the little-seen Assad meant they had a story and an inside perspective for their news organizations. They had something their competition did not.

For the International Reporting Project (IRP) at Johns Hopkins University’s School
of Advanced International Study, which had organized this trip to introduce American journalists to Islam and the Middle East, such a newsmaking opportunity was a welcome addition to the serious, diverse and challenging intellectual program the project staff had carefully arranged from their headquarters in Washington, D.C.

The day had begun with a fleet of small government cars waiting outside the Omayad Hotel in downtown Damascus where the journalists had stayed the night. Drivers dressed in black suits whisked them through the city behind a motorcycle police escort with sirens blazing. They traveled past the UN building that had been bombed only ten days before, to the palace on a desert hill built to impress and exhude control. From this huge cement palace, designed by a Japanese architect with little reverence for anything Syrian, the entire sprawling, ancient city of Damascus, with its souk and wandering neighborhoods, could be observed at a glance.

The journalists walked through the wide corridors of the palace, which was devoid of furniture or art, past flowing fountains and into a large elongated room where, without warning, President Assad waited to greet them, one by one. The tall young man with a receding chin hardly looked like the formidable enemy described by U.S. diplomats. He also didn’t seem as crafty as he joked about his love of computers and e-mail. But clearly, this unusual meeting, arranged by Assad’s ambassador to the United States, was part of a Syrian campaign to connect with the American people and present a different picture than American policymakers are currently painting.

After the meeting with Assad, most of the editors filed stories. Excerpts include this, from AP’s Laura Myers, who wrote, “Assad disputed the case that the Bush administration had made to impose the embargo, saying Syria does not have weapons of mass destruction and there is no evidence of foreign fighters crossing the border from Syria to Iraq.”

From Steven Butler, Knight Ridder’s foreign editor: “Assad strongly disputed the premise of the American demands while calling for a common effort with the United States to pursue peace in the Middle East and fight terrorism. U.S. officials acknowledge that Syria has provided important intelligence on terrorists.”

From The Boston Globe’s James Smith: “In a rare meeting with American journalists at his palace, Assad said Syria was still assessing the impact that the sanctions could have, but he downplayed their potential affect…Still, the president suggested that even a symbolic U.S. move against Syria could hinder efforts to gradually implement internal reforms and ease Syria’s longtime suppression of political opposition.”

For Assad, the morning spent with leading U.S. journalists was a worthwhile exercise. For the reporters, it was a high. They were in the Middle East to learn, attend seminars, meet with leaders, both those in power and from the opposition. They were here to experience the different perspectives of the Muslim world in Lebanon and Syria, but getting a story first-hand, feeling the pulse of a world leader was a special experience, one bound to animate and energize these intelligent, well-educated and well-traveled journalists.

Next page: But there was another benefit that these thirteen “Gatekeeper Editors”—as the group was collectively known—were reaping, as well: journalism is arguably the most prominent American profession that makes little investment in its best and brightest.

Page 1 | 2 | 3

Copyright information | Masthead | Carnegie Corporation of New York web site