Veteran foreign correspondent Anthony Shadid died while on assignment for the NY Times in Syria yesterday, of an apparent asthma attack. Shadid, 43, and photographer Tyler Hicks had sneaked across the border from Turkey (crawling under a barbed wire fence), and spent a week covering the conflict there. Hicks says Shadid had asthma medication with him, but on their way back to Turkey he suffered a fatal attack, apparently brought on by their guides' horses. more ›

We knew that Mayor Bloomberg's city budget was going to be painful, but we didn't realize it would lead to a fight between reporters at City Hall. Witnesses tell the Daily News that two reporters, WABC 7's Dave Evans and blogger Rafael Martinez Alequin, got into a heated exchange while listening to Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott, with Evans saying, "Don’t touch me. Don’t touch me like that again, or I’ll flatten you," and Alequin replying, "f---ing f-----t." Uh-oh. more ›

CNN has been going through some growing pains lately; between Larry King's retirement and Octavia Nasr's mis-tweet, as well as previously losing Lou Dobbs and Christine Amanpour, CNN has parted ways with a lot of talent, and is desperate for new blood (see also: Eliot Spitzer). more ›

Mayor Bloomberg was apparently quite brusque with reporters after an event at the Morgan Library and Museum yesterday, refusing answers and insulting anyone who dare ask him his opinion on things like the indictment of campaign aide John Haggerty. "There’s nothing else I can say about this," he snapped to one reporter. “Miss! I’m sorry that my English isn’t apparently good enough for you," he barked at another who prodded him. There was no end in sight to the cruelty, until he told one reporter, "We will take a legitimate question from you." However, the situation did not rise to disgrace-ful levels. more ›

The longest campaign on record has taken a heavy toll on political reporters, according to a funny article in The New Republic. Marriages are frayed, lifestyles are unhealthy, and now they're freaking out about adjusting to civilian life come next Wednesday. Times reporter Matt Bai says, "There are guys who went out to the primaries in November, December, and thought they'd be done in February or March, and they just never came home. They never came home." The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza describes the Obama campaign plane: "It felt like the Lord of the Flies in there. The people who have been there for a long time have all of their little decorations and knickknacks all over the back of the plane. Everyone's a little grumpy and territorial, and there's this sense of people thrown together who have been with each other way too long. I got the sense that I was dropping in on a hostage-captor situation." But who knows, maybe the election will be contested like in 2000 and they won't have to face the real world just yet. more ›