Uploaded March 2020 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
An American freelance journalist who’s lived for many years in Syria and the Middle East, Theo Padnos’s unorthodox style of undercover reporting from Yemeni Madrassas had already made him enemies before he was kidnapped by Al-Qaeda in Northern Syria in Autumn 2012. After two years of horrific torture at the hands of his captors, and five days after the execution of another American freelance journalist Jim Foley by Islamic State, Padnos was freed. He came to the CIJ to talk about how to report Islamism and Syria, what he sees as the gulf between mainstream media coverage of Syria and his experience of life on the ground, and how to survive two years of gruesome torture to tell the journalistic tale.
Theo Padnos is the author of Undercover Muslim, and writes for The New York Times magazine and The New Republic.
This discussion is part of our Logan CIJ Talks Series and took place at Goldsmiths, University of London, on 06 December 2017.
An American freelance journalist who’s lived for many years in Syria and the Middle East, Theo Padnos’s unorthodox style of undercover reporting from Yemeni Madrassas had already made him enemies before he was kidnapped by Al-Qaeda in Northern Syria in Autumn 2012. After two years of horrific torture at the hands of his captors, and five days after the execution of another American freelance journalist Jim Foley by Islamic State, Padnos was freed. He came to the CIJ to talk about how to report Islamism and Syria, what he sees as the gulf between mainstream media coverage of Syria and his experience of life on the ground, and how to survive two years of gruesome torture to tell the journalistic tale.
Theo Padnos is the author of Undercover Muslim, and writes for The New York Times magazine and The New Republic.
This discussion is part of our Logan CIJ Talks Series and took place at Goldsmiths, University of London, on 06 December 2017.
