Austin Tice Podcast Reveals Syria's Disappearance Network — SkimNews
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- Austin Tice, a US marine turned freelance foreign correspondent, disappeared in Syria in 2012 — and if still alive would be the world's second-longest detained journalist, according to the source.
- Josh Baker's third season of BBC podcast "I'm Not a Monster" investigates Tice's case, which Baker says revealed "a world of espionage, spies, dictatorship" and Syria's regime's "industrial complex of disappearance and torture."
- Baker says the Tice investigation produced more leaks from more intelligence sources worldwide than any work in his decade-long career covering espionage — "absolutely extraordinary."
- The podcast enters Syria's detention facilities after Assad's fall, documenting atrocities Baker links to a conservative estimate of 100,000 people disappeared.
- Baker says he emerged from the investigation with "a pretty decent idea about what may have happened to Austin," though acknowledged he could not be definitive.
- Baker noted that under the Trump administration, sources have become "much less inclined to speak" to journalists, contrasting with the relatively open access he found in Washington.
- Tice's mother was Baker's stated motivation for the project — he said he identified with her single-parent existence rather than with Tice himself, calling it "what an awful existence to have."
Why it matters: After 14 years with no major breakthrough in the Tice case, Baker says his investigation produced leaks from intelligence sources worldwide — access he calls unprecedented in his career. With Assad gone and his detention facilities now accessible, the podcast lands as Syrian regime atrocities face their first sustained journalistic reckoning, while Tice's fate itself remains unresolved.
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