Don Belt - Tag Search

Bashar Al-Assad's fiefdom has been in the media spotlight lately, with stories about Syria's lurch into the modern age appearing in National Geographic, Fox News and now Conde Nast's Traveler.

Some of the coverage has been positive, some negative, but Syrian press handlers seem to be operating under the premise that any news is good news - according to Fox News' report, Damascus invited a wide swath of Middle Eastern journalists on the recent junket that led to Fox's story.

Nevertheless, the critical coverage in Don Belt's National Geographic article is now the subject of some pushback by Syrian Ambassador Imad Moustapha (h/t Syria Comment). Moustapha penned a lengthy letter to Belt, Belt's editor in chief and the magazine's executive vice president warning that National Geographic's relationship with Syria has been "permanently damaged."

Evan blogged over the weekend about Don Belt's excellent portrait of modern Syria in National Geographic. Syria News Wire rightly called it the best article on Syria in a decade.

For a less enlightened perspective on Syria -- but perhaps a more entertaining one -- I recommend this article by Amy Kellogg, a FOX News correspondent who recently returned from a 10-day trip to what she strangely dubs a "normally reclusive country."

Among her insightful observations: Syria has lingerie shops! Many Syrians speak English! They're even willing to stop and give directions to a foreigner!

I guess it's an encouraging sign that FOX News is writing sympathetically about Syria, a country the network has long treated as a junior member of the "axis of evil." But what a schlocky piece of writing this is. And it's only the first in a multi-part series!

In Pity the Nation, Robert Fisk's epic tome about the formation and disintegration of Lebanon, Fisk recalls reading a faded 1950s newspaper story in which a European visitor writes of being wowed by the typical allures of the "Switzerland of the Middle East," while he glosses over a deadly anti-government protest - the beginning of Lebanon's first civil war - as the birth pangs of a young democracy.

National Geographic writer Don Belt, who has penned a knowing portrait of Syria for the magazine's November issue, seems determined to avoid missing such a historical boat. His wide-ranging story about the precariously perched Bashar al-Assad regime has impressed even Syria News Wire - never happy with carpetbagging foreign correspondents - which has called it "the best article on Syria in a decade."