The thick of it

Syria is not Afghanistan, or Egypt, she emphasized. It is a sophisticated, modern society, has college grads, a middle class. “And so it has something to fall back on. That’s why the social media use and strategies have been so clever.”

“Assad gets credit for the educated society. But he couldn’t bring a modern economy. It was too bogged down in corruption and inefficiency. The problem with a dictatorship is you can educate everyone but if you can’t meet their expectations you will eventually have an explosion.

“But there are no poli sci majors. They’re all IT people, let’s do YELP, internet businesses. But they couldn’t break through the circles of corruption. In a society of young people, where is there for them to go? So they finally went to the streets.

When you watch it every day, the complexity is intoxicating, fascinating.”

Do you feel safe there?

“No. nobody’s safe. I was almost blown up there on my last trip…”

What will she tell the aspiring journalists at SUNY New Paltz? “I want to talk to them about what NPR does, which is narrative journalism. A friend wrote a piece about why we watch Downton Abbey…there is a craving for narrative in a world that’s driven by Facebook and fragments. So I try to make my stories as narrative as I can. I try to tell stories about it, that give people a way to understand what’s happening. Otherwise it’s just too complicated.

“I’ve been in the NPR cult for a long time. That’s how we do it, This American Life, The Moth Radio Hour, we want to be storytellers. You can tell people stuff in that form.”

Amos met her husband Davis in 1982 in Lebanon, covering the Israeli invasion. “I was a war bride,” she jokes. “We moved to Jordan in 1985. He worked until he retired and I still do it.”

Davis, in and out of the conversation at Maria’s in Woodstock, says “This is the most emotionally involved I’ve seen you.”

Eventually, Amos signed on with network television and did a decade in TV news, reporting for ABC’s Nightline and World News Tonight and PBS’s Now with Bill Moyers and Frontline. “In 2003, I came back to NPR, I was miserable as a TV correspondent for ABC. They were sending me back to New York. They cast the (Iraq) war, they didn’t report it. I called NPR and just went. I still don’t have a full time job with them, I’m a contract reporter. I go for six weeks, drag myself home, see my husband, go to the campus, the supermarket, then go back…”

So what is the day to day life in Syria like?

“The society keeps on going,” says Amos. “The middle class becomes the refugees. The poor can’t get out. The Islamists do well because all that’s left is the poor and uneducated.”

And the upshot?

“They need Bashar to go. It will be a mess, but that’s the price you pay for 50 years of a dictator. You rip off the lid. It’s a long process, a necessary process. In Egypt, the Muslim brotherhood is doing poorly, they were good a being the opposition.”

She recognizes a potential leader.

“Moaz Khatib is the head of the Syrian opposition at the moment. He’s charismatic, intelligent, was kicked out of his Mosque because Bashar knew he was intelligent, has an advanced degree in geology. He’s the first guy I’ve seen who could do it. He took Bashar’s seat at the Arab League — that was amazing — and gave a great speech…but the crisis will probably go for five to ten years.”

“The Middle East was the full employment act for journalists,” says Davis. “Once you know it, it’s hard to turn your back on it.”

And in order to do your job properly, you must communicate.

“With language, I’m a relic. I once called a man Mr. Penis on the phone…my translator fell on the desk. So instead I learned about Islam,” says Amos. “But there’s nobody under 30 who does what I do and doesn’t know [the language]. And Facebook is the communicator in the Syrian revolution. I need to know what’s on Facebook.

“I’m with a young translator now, and you get a window on the culture. My last one was 28 and had been an interior designer in Aleppo, he hates the Islamists, knew everyone in Aleppo. You can’t dismiss that kind of relationship.”

She reflects on the rush of awards.

“I am a late bloomer. It’s nice at this point in my career,” says Amos. “Journalism is about being in the right place at the right time. I started going to Damascus in 2006 and your knowledge is cumulative. There was a moment in Baghdad that we thought it was the Super Bowl. And in a way it was. But there are 23 million Syrians inside and 23 million outside. The Saudis are the richest ex-pats, the Syrians are next. There’s not a void, it’s not repairable yet, but they’re all poised.”