Into the Line of Fire
JAMES FOLEY, A 38-YEAR-OLD former prison literacy teacher, went to Syria in 2012 to cover a civil war in which the United States was a major player—and which Americans were largely ignoring. He believed in the power of witnessing, and in the human capacity for empathy. “Journalism in a war zone should not be just about conflict,” says Charles Sennott, a veteran foreign correspondent who was one of Foley’s editors. “He had the most extraordinary talent to tell the story of the people caught in the middle of it.”
It’s an impulse and the . They were America’s eyes on the world. At its peak, international news filled 10 percent of newspaper space and 45 percent of news broadcasts.
