13 years after journalist Austin Tice disappeared, we’re still searching for answers

It was 13 years ago Wednesday — Aug. 13, 2012 — that journalist Austin Tice was kidnapped while reporting in Syria. He had just turned 31.

Today, no one knows what has happened to Tice. Is he still alive? If so, where is he?

On Wednesday, The Washington Post published a remarkably good and deeply-reported piece by Souad Mekhennet, Ellen Nakashima, Joanna Slater and Aaron Schaffer: “Inside the 13-year search for Austin Tice, the journalist who disappeared.”

The Post says it interviewed more than 70 people who knew, met, negotiated over or investigated the disappearance of Tice. The reporters write in the story, “Despite intensive efforts to secure Tice’s release or confirm his status, the truth about his fate remains elusive, making his case one of the most difficult U.S. officials say they have ever encountered.”

There was renewed hope in December when Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime crumbled. The jails were opened and there was optimism that Tice would be found. But still, there has been no sign of him.

In April, Bassam al-Hassan, a former member of Assad’s inner circle, claimed Tice was killed in 2013 on Assad’s orders. But that story remains unsubstantiated.

Meanwhile, Tice’s parents — Marc and Debra — believe their son is still alive and are determined to find him. They believe the U.S. government hasn’t done enough. Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden have all been president during Tice’s disappearance. Debra told the Post, “There is only one way of measuring this. If you didn’t get him home, you’ve lost.”

The Post story is broken into sections, starting with Tice’s background and inspiration for going to Syria. It also recounts Tice’s work there, including stories written for the Post. It then reports on Tice’s sudden disappearance, his brief escape from his captors, and what has happened since then — including frustrating efforts to get him back from a government that ultimately denied having him.

On Wednesday, Clayton Weimers, executive director of Reporters Without Borders USA, said in a statement, “Four successive presidential administrations have so far failed to bring Austin Tice home. Moreover, they remain unnecessarily silent about the matter. President Trump must do everything within his power to find and free Austin immediately — and he should show his work. The American people deserve to know what their government is doing to bring home the longest detained American journalist.”

Debra Tice told the Post, “My son’s not dead. He’s walking around somewhere.”

Again, check out the Post story. It’s superb, and includes some never-before-known details.

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Raising cain

I should probably start by saying that I don’t expect much objective journalism when it comes to “The Will Cain Show” on Fox News. Cain’s right-wing, Trump-supporting politics are no secret. That’s fine. You kind of know that going in. He’s a host/pundit, not a straight newscaster.

But this week, when he had James Talarico — a Democratic state representative from Texas — on his program, it looked like something a legitimate news show would do. As The Independent’s Justin Baragona pointed out, “In recent days, Talarico has served as something of a spokesman for the Texas Democrats who fled the state in an effort to block Republicans from pushing through a redistricting vote that could potentially allow the GOP to pick up five new U.S. House seats. Talarico, along with many of his Democratic colleagues, is currently holed up in Illinois to deny the legislature a quorum.”

The interview was going along fine. Cain pushed Talarico a bit for "abandoning" Texas, while Talarico argued that state Republicans were trying to “rig” the elections. A give-and-take, some push and pushback, is all well and good. The two went back and forth, and it was a little contentious, but it didn’t seem as if Cain was being disrespectful. It was all fair stuff.

At one point, Talarico asked Cain, “If Republican policies are popular, why do they need to redraw these maps, why can’t they run on their policies?”

Cain immediately said, “I’m getting wrapped on time. I’m enjoying this conversation. I want to let it go on. I apologize. Such is the nature of cable television.”

Cain then asked one more question about funding for his trip to Illinois. And, a minute-and-a-half later, it ended on what appeared to be a pleasant note.

And then this happened. Talarico took to X and wrote, “I just went on Fox News to tell the truth about the redistricting power grab in Texas. I asked a simple question: ‘If Republican policies are so popular, why do they need to redraw these maps; why not run on their policies?’ He refused to answer — and cut the interview early.”

OK, I’m going to defend Cain here for a moment. Talarico’s question about why Republicans felt the need to redraw the maps seemed like a rhetorical one. He was making a point, and Cain allowed him to make that point. Cain shouldn’t have been expected to actually answer that question; he clearly didn’t think he needed to answer it, and so he didn’t. And I firmly believe that Cain was told by producers to wrap up the interview, which at that point had been going for nearly 10 minutes — a lot of time for a TV interview.

Cain, of course, couldn’t let Talarico’s X remark go by. He fired back on X, “Oh James. Trolls distorting the interview is one thing, but you were there. I respectfully gave you ten minutes, an eternity in cable news. And in all that time you had no answer as to why you’ve abandoned your job. You can take a flag to IL but you still cut and run from Texas.”

I don’t know that I would have sent that, but it wasn’t out of bounds.

But then Cain went too far with his next post: “And your dishonesty in suggesting I cut your interview short perfectly illustrates the honesty of your run away from TX. I always welcome honest debate but it’s clear that’s not who you are. Stay in Illinois little Jimmy. Better fit for you than TX.”

I get Cain wanting to defend himself, but journalists (or even a host like Cain) have to rise above that kind of criticism. Cain not only made it personal, but he made it nasty — saying things such as “little Jimmy” and how Illinois is a better fit than Texas, which was meant as an insult. Aside from being thin-skinned, Cain showed a bias that betrayed the good intentions of the original interview.

Again, I probably shouldn’t expect anything better, but I had higher hopes after what started as an interesting interview. I’m not saying Talarico was right for his tweet, but you half-expect politicians to spin and attack. You don’t expect that from respectable journalists — something Cain was attempting to be when he had Talarico on in the first place.

Pass the mayo

OK, this is funny. On her podcast, Katie Miller (the wife of Trump adviser Stephen Miller) told Vice President JD Vance that the only condiment her husband eats is mayonnaise.

MSNBC’s Jen Psaki tweeted, “This tracks…considering mayo is the absolute worst.”

Sending a message

Perhaps you remember this story from 2023. The newspaper in Marion, Kansas, was raided by police. They took pretty much everything belonging to the Marion County Record, which had seven employees and a circulation of around 4,000. A day after the raid, Joan Meyer, who co-owned the paper with her son Eric, collapsed and died. Some believe that her death is directly tied to the police raid.

At the time, The New York Times wrote, “The searches, conducted on Friday, appeared to be linked to an investigation into how a document containing information about a local restaurateur found its way to the local newspaper — and whether the restaurant owner’s privacy was violated in the process. The editor of the newspaper said the raids may have had more to do with tensions between the paper and officials in Marion, a town of about 2,000 north of Wichita, over prior coverage.”

Since then, according to the Kansas Reflector, “The situation spawned one state and five federal lawsuits, as well as a criminal charge against former police chief Gideon Cody.”

All of the paper’s materials were returned.

This week, two years after the raid, Eric Meyer — the owner, publisher and editor of the Marion County Record — talked on a Reflector podcast about where things stand, the status of the lawsuits and the need for powerful journalism. (Click here to listen.)

When Meyer was asked about settling the lawsuits or wanting a trial, he said, “The real reason we wanted to go to trial was we wanted a ruling on the record that acknowledges that this is something you just don’t do. And if they are willing to provide that as a stipulation, we might accept that. This has never been about money. This is about making sure that people understand what they did was wrong, admit that publicly. Set it as an example. And somehow or other, it needs to hurt. One of our concerns is that they’ll want to settle up to the limit of their insurance coverage. Well, that really means you did nothing. I mean, it really probably needs to go a little beyond insurance. Now, we don’t want to bankrupt the city or county of Marion by any manner or means. But something that has a little pain to it.”

Media tidbits

• HuffPost is looking for a head of news. It prefers a candidate from New York City, but Washington, D.C., candidates are encouraged to apply. Here are the details.
• This summer, Poynter enjoyed the work of extremely bright intern Sophie Endrud from Duke University. This week, she filed her final story (for now) for Poynter: “Young journalists are told to ‘build your brand.’ What does that even mean today?”
• This headline from Deadline is real: “Donald Trump Says He Will Host The Kennedy Center Honors, Unveils This Year’s Recipients.”
• Great line: After being welcomed on the “New Heights” podcast by her football-playing boyfriend, Travis Kelce, and his former football-playing brother, Jason, pop star Taylor Swift said, “Thanks for having me on my favorite podcast. As we all know, you guys have a lot of male sports fans that listen to your podcast. And I think we all know that if there’s one thing that male sports fans want to see in their spaces and on their screens, it’s more of me.” As Awful Announcing’s Drew Lerner explained, “Swift’s comment comes in reference to the almost immediate backlash directed at her from a certain section of sports fans who have taken issue with the amount of airtime her presence at Kansas City Chiefs games has received. In the time since she and Travis first began dating in 2023, it’s been common to hear complaints about broadcasts constantly cutting away from the game to show her in a suite, even if she hasn’t actually been focused on as often as they’d have you believe.”
• And here’s Max Matza and Christal Hayes of BBC News with “What we learned from Taylor Swift's first-ever podcast interview.”

Hot type

• President Donald Trump is bringing the presidential fitness tests back to school. Which leads The New Yorker’s Zach Helfand to write, “Can President Trump Run a Mile?”
• The Athletic’s Nathan Fenno with “Aaron Donald was one of the NFL’s toughest players. A stalker left him living in fear.”
• And here’s another from The Athletic’s Carson Kessler: “‘I’m sitting behind the bench’: Inside sports’ escalating stalking problem.”

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Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at [email protected].

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