Community Corner

Two Staples Grads Missing in Libya: NY Times

The New York Times has not heard from the missing journalists since Tuesday.

Photographers Tyler Hicks and Lynsey Addario are among four New York Times journalists reported missing in Libya. Both are Staples graduates who have won the Pulitzer Prize, among other top honors in their field.

Contact has been lost since Tuesday morning in Eastern Time. Normally, the paper hears from the journalists several times a day.

“We have talked with officials of the Libyan government in Tripoli, and they tell us they are attempting to ascertain the whereabouts of our journalists,” Bill Keller, executive editor, said in a story published by the paper. “We are grateful to the Libyan government for their assurance that if our journalists were captured they would be released promptly and unharmed.”

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Libya, a nation based on the oil trade, is embroiled in civil war as insurgents try to topple the government. In the New York Times' photography blog, Hicks described a battle he saw on March 9 as the “thickest fighting” he had ever seen.

"I’m always looking for some kind of cover," he said in the blog. "But the bombs they’re dropping are huge. You can’t run from them, because you don’t know where they’re going to land. Even if you are wearing a flak jacket and a helmet, if you were hit by one of these bombs from a jet, the clothes wouldn’t do you very much good."

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Both Addario and Hicks have traveled extensively as photographers, from Darfur to Afghanistan, and are considered among the top photojournalists in the world. Hicks graduated from Staples in 1988, and Addario graduated in 1991.


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