Powerful Reporting From Steven Sotloff, the Second Journalist ISIS Executed


Steven Sotloff (center with black helmet) talks to Libyan rebels on the Al Dafniya front line near in Misrata, Libya in 2011.

A video released today appeared to confirm the worst fears for the fate of captured American journalist Steven Sotloff: a beheading at the hands of Islamic State extremists. The video’s authenticity has not yet been confirmed by US officials, but the New York Times reports that Sotloff’s family believes he has been killed. If so, that means the 31-year-old Sotloff—who went missing a year ago while reporting in Syria—becomes the second American journalist executed by the Islamic State.

Last month, a video surfaced showing ISIS fighters executing American journalist James Foley. Many on the Internet seethed that the gruesome circumstances of his death appeared to overshadow his important work. The same shouldn’t happen to Sotloff. Ignore the sensational headlines and instead explore some of the brave, intelligent journalism he devoted his life to producing:

“Syrian Purgatory”: In this 2013 piece for Foreign Policy, Sotloff traveled to a Syrian refugee camp to report on the hundreds of thousands displaced by the civil war there. His chilling opening sets the tone for a story about the plight of refugees and the pitfalls of humanitarian aid: “It was less than 40 degrees Fahrenheit, and the winter wind cut to the bone. When I asked why she didn’t have a blanket like everyone else at the Atmeh refugee camp, [Um Ibrahim] shrugged and looked down. ‘I sold it to buy bread for my children.'”

“From Bread Lines to Front Lines:” Again in Foreign Policy, Sotloff went to Aleppo—one of the most devastated cities in Syria—to show how traumatic the daily lives of ordinary Syrians had become by late 2012. “The 21-month long Syrian revolution is taking its toll on residents of the country’s largest city,” he wrote. “With everything from medicine to firewood in scarce supply, and with winter bringing temperatures down to near freezing, people here are struggling to cope with a war they just hope will end.”

“The Other 9/11: Libyan Guards Recount What Happened in Benghazi:” For this TIME article, Sotloff—who covered Libya extensively for the magazine—interviewed Libyan security guards present when the US consulate in Benghazi was attacked. The result is a vivid, meticulous timeline of the events of September 11, 2012. One example: “Abdullah ran towards the cantina east of C villa where a grenade exploded nearby. ‘I remember the shrapnel that landed in my leg was very hot and I was shaken, a bit dizzy,’ he recalled. A group of attackers then passed him on the way to encircling the cantina. They shot him twice in the leg. Others beat him so hard he lost consciousness.”

“Libya’s New Crisis: A Wave of Assassinations Targeting Its Top Cops:” Here, Sotloff reported on the deadly aftershocks of the Benghazi attacks. In explaining the rash of killings of major Libyan security officials, Sotloff paints a compelling picture of the deterioration of post-Qaddafi Libya. “But the biggest loser today is a Libyan state stumbling from one crisis to the next,” he writes. “The government has not investigated the bombings and no one has been prosecuted.”

“The Alawite Towns That Support Syria’s Assad—in Turkey:” TIME featured some of Sotloff’s early reporting on the war in Syria. In 2012, he traveled to Turkey to report on Turkish Alawites’ support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. In doing so, he put himself in the thick of anti-American protests. “When an American journalist stops to ask about the group’s activities, though, a burly man in his 30s hisses him away, shouting, “America is funding terrorists in Syria!'”

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We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

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