Talk:Syrian citizen journalists risk death, targeted; city of Homs facing starvation

Original reporting
I was watching the live feed when the camera was nearly hit. I also watched the whole 4 hour video after it was archived. I also have spoken to "Omar" who plans on answering some questions soon for this articke. More notes to follow as more is written. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 20:18, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Video here: and here: (thumb) . DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 21:35, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Skype conversation, unrecorded unfortunately. Was kind of spur of the moment. Omar says roughly: "if they stay like this just watching us. People will die not because of the shelling, they will die because of starving. We are surrounded. No food. No meidcal supply. If world dn't do anything we will die from starving. No water. In the coming days a masssacre for starving." DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 22:44, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Log from Skype conversation sent through scoop. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 19:40, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Report on Damascus funeral/protest from video compilation here: . DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 19:41, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Video/audio of Omar talking with friend at Homs Media Center when it was bombed. Marie Colvin was there with a French Photographer. . DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 21:51, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Latest developments

 * http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/19/us-egypt-syria-envoy-idUSTRE81I0DJ20120219
 * Egypt has recalled their ambassador following the escalation of violence yesterday. --Brian McNeil / talk 20:12, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I mention the ambassador recall as this is what the article should lead with (as most-current development). That will require a change of title. I've reviewed the 9hrs of footage from Feb 14, and there are some close calls with the camera shaking, but none as-bad as the already-processed clips showing the building and that opposite being hit. From that, I'd conclude he's not directly targeted, but access to the site he used may-well have been. --Brian McNeil / talk 21:35, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Structural issues
--Pi zero (talk) 23:32, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
 * This needs a lede. The current first paragraph not only isn't short enough, it really doesn't serve the function.  Look at the article at a whole and what focal news event/phenomenon it is about.  Try making a bulleted list of the six basic questions, and writing a one-to-four-word answer to each that you can; then write once sentence, not overly long, that captures much of it.  Add a second sentence to perhaps pick up some more of the answers you were able to write out, and maybe give a brief hint of the overall structure of the rest of the article.
 * I'm still trying to grok the overall structure. My impression is that the article jumps around in tense, even using present tense for some running accounts of observed video (unsystematically?).  Usually a solid solution, when covering events over a period like this, is to let the dominant tense throughout be simple past.
 * In reply to the lede, under circumstances applying to a news piece maybe a few paragraphs long, I would agree. However this is something that's in depth. Two sentences, in my opinion wouldn't be enough. In reply to past vs present, I can see where that is confusing. though when I started writing this it was a bit more recent. However it sets the scene in regards to what happened first to cause the events after...In other words, what this guy was doing indirectly caused all of the events that happened around him. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 23:49, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, it's going to need some kind of lede. I actually think sometimes an in-depth article is better suited to that; you can write a wicked one-sentence paragraph that really gets the reader's attention, then they're keeen to delve into the detail. Lemme think and see if I can come up with anything. Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 23:55, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Starting review
In my initial once-through copyedit for review, I've tried to smooth out the tense, but didn't feel I could safely eliminate all the tense shifts. Hopefully it's pretty good now, and hopefully I haven't accidentally scrambled any of the meaning. We've got a fairly decent lede now. I'm going to see what I can do toward source-checking before I have to turn in tonight (I'm not physically able atm to pull an all nighter on this, as I have sometimes for OR in the past); if there's something simple I can say about what I've verified at that point, I'll leave it as a note here. --Pi zero (talk) 04:46, 25 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Problem (first of its kind I've found): I cannot verify
 * "At nearly 19 minutes into the call, the sound of a woman can be heard crying in pain, presumably Colvin."
 * The YouTube video now there is only 18:50 in length, and I don't hear anything near the end of it like a cry of pain. Could you have specified the wrong position in the video, or can you otherwise suggest an explanation for this?  --Pi zero (talk) 06:31, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I've commented out that sentence pending resolution. --Pi zero (talk) 06:41, 25 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Progress report: I've verified all of, and only, paragraph 11, which starts "The killings didn't end there." To do so I had to comment out one sentence pending resolution, as noted above.  I've used (and tentatively finished with) the first six sources, just those dated the 24th, 23rd, 22nd.
 * And now I truly have to get some sleep. --Pi zero (talk) 07:20, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I am sure I could hear a woman's voice in that audio. Not a big deal if not. But I am pretty sure I heard it near the end...faint though. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 09:30, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Progress report: I've now verified paragraph 10, which starts "On February 21, ...". I've used, tentatively finished with, the three sources dated the 21st.
 * Observation: This should have been about a dozen small-to-medium articles. If it had been, they'd probably all have been published by now. Reviewing this monster is about a dozen times the size of a normal review task, and I have a sinking feeling when I've been through all the sources I'll be left with some crucial stuff not found, and I'll have no clue where to look for it because there are far too many sources for me to keep them all open in browser tabs at once (I'd crash my laptop trying).  So after an utterly absurd amount of work I'll be left up a creek without a paddle.  This could and, with retrospect, should have been prevented by splitting the article up into very many smaller pieces.  (At the current rate, finishing getting through all the sources will happen at about the same time that Syria and Israel sign a treaty of mutual love and admiration.)  --Pi zero (talk) 16:10, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
 * working from the bottom-up. Looks like last para is 100% OR. Will be, ironically, easier to check that than stuff sourced from MSM. --Brian McNeil / talk 16:23, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
 * As should be noted, I've broken the sections I've reviewed into far smaller paragraphs. For a news report shorter paragraphs read far more easily. What I'm trying to establish is what else is reviewed. I assume at-a-minimum par10, par11 of prior to my work on this. More? Less? --Brian McNeil / talk 17:14, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
 * The only things I've reviewed are those two paragraphs (plus, that the assault started on the 4th, which I needed to double-check ahead of schedule to 100% clear par10). As far as I could tell, the most recent sources pertained only to those two paragraphs.  --Pi zero (talk) 17:36, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

So just from that point to the end is reviewed then?

I'll mark that off in comments/breaks. Then we can parcel out the rest. We can catch DragonFire1024 down a dark alley later. --Brian McNeil / talk 17:38, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Given my introduction of substantially more paragraph breaks, a fair chunk of this is now reviewed. However, as-it-stands I had to correct what's now in para 10 and 11 as an inaccurate account from the video footage. I downloaded the clip showing the strike on the oil pipeline with a view to possibly editing it into a report. The first strike on the pipeline is out of shot, left; the second strike in-shot, left. Then the camera is repositioned to show both plumes of smoke. The first strike becomes visible before the second occurs, but it is very, very small and a detail you'd not see unless looking with a view to video editing. Thus, I'm not confident on those sections being passable unless DF is happy these edits are accurate.
 * Otherwise, have made a substantial dent in this. The key criticism I'd put across is the humongous paragraphs everything was lumped into. I took the section I just worked-over; it started as two very offputting gobs of dense narrative, now it's five paragraphs that won't drive away readers, or cause them to lose the place reading on-screen. --Brian McNeil / talk 19:04, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Category
Could you add Category:2011 Syria anti-government protests? --92.37.202.125 (talk) 06:02, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
 * ✅ --Pi zero (talk) 06:10, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Categories
edit protected Please move this article from Category:Syria to Category:Syrian Civil War. Thank you. Green Giant (talk) 17:23, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Added to the latter. --Pi zero (talk) 00:43, 2 October 2015 (UTC)