Inside CNN’s investigation into what happened to missing journalist Austin Tice

In a remarkable piece of dogged reporting published Tuesday, CNN’s Clarissa Ward tracked what may have happened to Austin Tice, the journalist and former U.S. Marine who went missing in 2012 while reporting from Syria.

In a grim moment, Bassam Al-Hassan, a powerful adviser to former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, tells Ward, “Of course, Austin is dead. Austin is dead.”

Al-Hassan has been a key figure in the Tice story since the journalist went missing more than a decade ago. He has claimed that Tice was killed in 2013 on Assad’s orders.

Ward and CNN producer Sarah El Sirgany, wearing a hidden camera, tracked Al-Hassan down at his apartment in Beirut, Lebanon, in September. Clearly rattled and asking Ward how she found him, Al-Hassan said that Tice was dead, nodding in agreement when Ward asked him if Tice was killed in 2013.

Al-Hassan told Ward, “I don’t want to protect Bashar al-Assad because he abandoned and left us. I don’t want to protect Russia or Iran, because the U.S. thinks Russia and Iran have something to do with the case. And I can assure you that this is not the case. This relates to President Bashar only.”

It should be noted that there have always been questions about Al-Hassan’s truthfulness.

In an email on Tuesday, Ward told me, “Al-Hassan was clearly completely shocked that we found him and that element of surprise played in our favor — he invited us into his home and was relatively friendly. We had been warned that he is an incredibly cunning and manipulative man. He went from playing the victim to asking to take our photo to choking up in a space of 20 minutes. Honestly, we were left with the impression that he is not a trustworthy character. At the same time, he seemed sincere when he said that Austin Tice was dead and this was something we heard from almost every single source (and we spoke to dozens of them).”

In her story for CNN, Ward wrote, “Several sources that CNN spoke to claimed that there are holes in Al-Hassan’s story. CNN has confirmed that he failed a polygraph test given to him by the FBI.”

She added, “While CNN cannot confirm that Tice is dead, for the first time we are hearing from people with direct knowledge of his capture, captivity and attempted escape. The accounts they provide strongly suggest that Tice was killed more than a decade ago, but there is no hard proof. Since the Assad regime fell last year, the new Syrian government has been keen to establish good relations with the US and has been working closely with American officials to help solve the Tice case. The FBI has ramped up its own investigation, collecting evidence on the ground.”

As Ward and El Sirgany were leaving Al-Hassan’s apartment, he choked up and said he owed the Tice family an apology. He said, “Truly, it upsets me to remember it. I wish what happened hadn’t happened. It was a predicament that I was burdened with.”

The former Syrian regime had denied having anything to do with Tice’s disappearance. The Biden administration said it believed Tice was still alive. There have been no signs of Tice since Assad was ousted by Syrian rebels last December.

Meanwhile, Austin’s mother, Debra, called Al-Hassan a “pathological liar.” In a new statement to CNN, the Tice family said, “Austin Tice is alive. We look forward to seeing him walk free.”

Ward told me in an email what it has been like reporting on this story.

“On a personal level, it has been challenging and at times quite devastating,” Ward wrote, “But my personal relationship with Austin is what has fueled my determination to get answers about what happened to him. I still am intent on finding out the precise circumstances around his alleged execution. We have been in touch with the man who Al-Hassan claims he passed the order onto, through an intermediary, and will continue to push until we get a full account of what happened.”

More to Ward’s story

 

The tense doorstep confrontation with Al-Hassan isn’t the only unforgettable moment in Ward’s reporting.

She visited a Syrian family home, where Tice stayed for several weeks, and talked to his host. She also visited a prison cell where Tice was likely kept during his time in captivity. In addition, Ward has never-before-seen video of Tice during his time in Syria.

Ward also has a wide-ranging interview with Gen. Safwan Bahloul, a former officer with Syria’s external intelligence branch, who says he interrogated Tice in 2012 at the behest of Al-Hassan.

Ward wrote in her story, “Bahloul, who has spent time in the US and the UK and speaks English fluently, told CNN he interrogated Tice three times. ‘I just went through the names and the contacts on his phone, asking him about each name,’ Bahloul said. ‘He was cooperative about it. He told me that he’s an ex-Marine officer. He wasn’t shaky. He was brave enough to face his custody. Sometimes even we talked about music.”

At one point, Tice briefly escaped but was quickly recaptured.

Bahloul was brought to see Tice again after that. Bahloul told Ward, “I felt the connection between me and him was just lost. I was talking to him and he was not responding. He was, in a way we could say, depressed. I never saw the guy again.”

You can watch the video here. (Note: A subscription to CNN’s new $6.99 streaming service is required. More on that below.)

Devastating hurricane roars on

Hurricane Melissa roared across Jamaica on Tuesday as a Category 5 storm, tying the record for the strongest hurricane landfall on record in the Atlantic basin in terms of wind speed and pressure. The storm’s eye made landfall near the town of New Hope, located about 70 miles west of Kingston, with maximum sustained winds of an incredible 185 mph.

After exiting Jamaica, it barreled toward Cuba as a Category 4 storm. It’s expected to head toward the Bahamas today.

There will be much more coverage in the days to come as damage is assessed and cleanup begins. For now, here is some of the notable media coverage of this historic storm:

• The New York Times’ Pranav Baskar with “Starlink is keeping some people in Jamaica online during the storm, but for how long?”
• Also from the Times, Scott Dance with “Volunteers Step In to Help Understaffed NOAA Track Hurricane Melissa.”
• And one more from the Times: Max Bearak and Lisa Friedman with “For Years, Islands Have Warned of Climate Disaster. They’ve Seen Little Help.”
• Here’s the latest from Television Jamaica, which was showing citizen videos and taking phone calls from viewers throughout the day on Tuesday. It also was, of course, relaying important information about emergency services, giving power and communication updates and airing press conferences.
• And here’s coverage from the Jamaica Observer.

Let’s see what happens

Fox News anchor Bret Baier has heard his name crop up in rumors about possibly joining CBS News under new editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, but it doesn’t sound as if he is ready to make the switch.

Appearing on the “Citizen McCain” podcast, Baier told host Meghan McCain, “I’m flattered by all the press and everything like that, but I’m in a multiyear contract with Fox. So I don’t know where everything’s going. I’m signed on to Fox, very happy at Fox. And, you know, we’ll see what happens at the end of that.”

Status’ Oliver Darcy was the first to report that Weiss was mulling over various names to add to the CBS News roster. One of those names included Baier, who would perhaps join the network as an anchor on the “CBS Evening News.” Those rumors heated up even more when “Evening News” co-anchor John Dickerson announced Monday that he was leaving the network at the end of the year. However, Darcy noted Baier’s long-term contract at Fox and the likelihood that he would stay put.

It seems all but certain that the “CBS Evening News” will have a new anchor come next year. Aside from Baier, other possibilities include internal candidates such as former “Evening News” anchor Norah O’Donnell, who anchored from 2019 to 2025, and “CBS Mornings” co-host Tony Dokoupil.

Meanwhile, The Independent’s Justin Baragona threw out another intriguing possibility: CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who does have some CBS ties as a correspondent for “60 Minutes.” Baragona reports that Weiss might have an interest in wooing Cooper away from CNN. That feels like a long shot, but it’s probably a higher-profile job than the one he currently has hosting his nightly CNN prime-time show. And it makes sense from CBS’s point of view. Cooper would give them the kind of star power that might allow them to catch up to ABC and NBC in the evening news ratings.

Posting their views

At least three times in the past two weeks, editorials in The Washington Post were about topics in which Post owner Jeff Bezos had a financial or corporate interest, and disappointingly, the editorials didn’t initially inform readers of that potential conflict of interest. That’s according to a new piece by NPR media writer David Folkenflik.

“In each case,” Folkenflik wrote, “the Post's official editorial line landed in sync with its owner's financial interests.”

The most recent example was an editorial last weekend in which the editorial board defended and applauded President Donald Trump’s tearing down the White House East Wing to build a ballroom. When the editorial was first posted online, it did not disclose to readers that Amazon, also owned by Bezos, contributed to the fund to pay for the project.

The disclaimer, reportedly, wasn’t added until Bill Grueskin, a well-respected name in the journalism world who is now at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, noted its absence and reached out to the paper to ask about it.

This latest series of missteps raises even more questions about the Post’s opinion page. Earlier this year, Bezos announced the opinion section would concentrate on personal liberties and free markets, and that “viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.”

That led opinion editor David Shipley to resign in protest. Several other columnists and contributors also went on to leave, while others were let go.

Folkenflik wrote, “For the newspaper's owner to have outside business holdings or activities that might intersect with coverage or commentary is conventionally seen to present at the least a perception of a conflict of interest. Newspapers typically manage the perception with transparency.”

While it’s one thing to write editorials that specifically appear to support the causes and wishes of ownership, it’s another to not even disclose those ties to ownership. Frankly, the Post knows better.

Folkenflik said the Post and its new opinion editor, Adam O’Neal, did not respond to requests for comment for his story.

Ruth Marcus, a former deputy editorial page editor at the Post, told Folkenflik, “Believing very fervently that disclosure resolved a lot of concerns, we never knowingly failed to disclose (conflicts).”

By the way, Marcus is a former editor at the Post because she resigned after claiming Post publisher Will Lewis killed a column she wrote about the changes at the paper.

Here we go again

On Tuesday, once again, CNN launched a streaming service. This one is called “All Access.” The cost is $6.99 a month, but subscribers who sign up by Jan. 5, 2026, can get it for $41.99 for the first year.

In the official statement, CNN said, “Subscribers now have access to stream a selection of live channels, a library of award-winning CNN Original Series and CNN Films, day-of catch-up content, video-on-demand programming that showcases CNN’s reporting muscle in the field as well as all text, audio and video content available on CNN.com and the CNN app.

“All Access” comes more than three years after CNN’s first go-around at this — something called CNN+ — was shut down less than a month after it launched.

CNN CEO Mark Thompson told CNN’s Brian Stelter, “It’s not CNN ‘extra’ or ‘plus,’ it’s CNN.” Thompson added it’s “all the programs you expect to get from CNN.”

As Stelter explained, “The new service, which is built into CNN’s existing apps and websites, features multiple live TV streams of news coverage and exclusive content. The target audience includes cable cord-cutters and people who consume news primarily on their phones.”

Check out Stelter’s story for more details, as well as Deadline’s Dade Hayes with “CNN Launches All Access Subscription Streaming Offering, Raising Curtain On New Era” and Variety’s Brian Steinberg with “CNN’s New ‘All Access’ Subscription Streamer Puts Bigger Spotlight on Mobile Viewers.”

Changing times?

Back in May, ESPN aired the final episode of “Around the Horn,” which was canceled after 23 years on the air. It was the first half of what the network called “Happy Hour,” the 5 to 6 p.m. Eastern time slot that paired “Around the Horn” alongside the legendary “Pardon the Interruption.”

For the past several months, sports fans have waited to see what ESPN would do with that 5 p.m. opening. There was speculation that ESPN would try to expand “Pardon the Interruption” to an hour, or that it would use it as a vehicle for a new talent such as Peter Schrager.

But now comes word about something that really makes sense. The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand reports that “SportsCenter” host Scott Van Pelt has emerged as a strong possibility to fill the 5 p.m. slot. ESPN president of content Burke Magnus confirmed to Marchand that Van Pelt is a candidate.

Van Pelt hosts the late-night version of “SportsCenter” that is as much about him as a traditional sports-driven “SportsCenter.” I mean that in a good way. Van Pelt gives opinion and analysis, conducts top-notch interviews with the stars of that evening’s sporting events and has regular features designed specifically for his show.

It makes for a highly entertaining version of “SportsCenter,” which typically starts around 11 p.m. Eastern. However, the starting times of those shows often vary depending on when live games that night end. Plus, it’s an odd schedule.

As Magnus told Marchand, “I don’t want to speak for him, but I think there is a limit for how long people can have their lives upside-down from working late nights. This could provide some relief in that regard.”

Marchand mentions that Schrager remains a possibility in that slot, as does NBA insider Brian Windhorst. But it sure sounds as if Van Pelt can have that spot if he wants it.

Van Pelt would continue to be the host of “Monday Night Countdown” — the pregame show for “Monday Night Football.”

Media tidbits

• My Poynter colleague, Angela Fu, with “One third of all journalists are creator journalists, new report finds.”
• For Poynter, republished from Northwestern University’s Medill Local News Initiative, it’s Liam Scott with “An Alaska station connects communities across hundreds of miles. Now it’s fighting to survive.”
• MSNBC has launched a new newsletter run by “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough. “The Tea, Spilled by Morning Joe” will come out daily and include Scarborough’s take on the news of the day. MSNBC says, “Readers can expect a daily distillation of Washington, D.C. politics, foreign policy, pop culture, Hollywood news, Wall Street whispers, and what’s happening with the influencers shaping politics and culture.” You can sign up for it here.
• From The Atlantic: “The Atlantic Promotes Krystle Champagne-Norwood and Emily Gottschalk-Marconi to Managing Editors.”

Hot type

• The New York Times’ Emma Goldberg with “The Candy Cane Park Murder Was Almost Solved. But Then …”

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• Access a list of mental health reporting resources on funding, source-building and more.

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

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