The Fixer: Finding Truth in the Middle East | Amjad Tadros

For more than three decades, Amjad Tadros had a front-row seat to history as a Middle East field producer—known in the business as a “fixer”—for CBS News and 60 Minutes.He helped arrange Dan Rather's interview with Saddam Hussein, reported from wars and revolutions across the Middle East, interviewed Osama bin Laden's former bodyguard, and helped investigate one of the most consequential intelligence failures of the Iraq War: the Iraqi defector code-named “Curveball.”Curveball's claims about mobile biological-weapons laboratories became an important part of the WMD case presented by Colin Powell at the United Nations. Years later, Amjad finally sat across the table from Curveball himself.But this conversation is about much more than Iraq.Amjad and I talk about how journalists decide whom to believe when everyone has an agenda; how 60 Minutes tried to verify stories before putting them on the air; whether journalists should ever stop being observers and intervene; how atrocities can be used to manipulate public opinion; why important stories like Yemen are so often ignored; and what more than 30 years behind the scenes taught him about which news sources to trust.We also talk about Amjad's remarkable book, The Fixer: A Journalist's Accidental Journey Through the Middle East—part memoir, part history, and part behind-the-scenes look at how journalism actually works.Feasts of Reason is about a simple question: Why do we believe what we believe? Few stories demonstrate the consequences of that question more dramatically than Curveball.For more information on Amjad and "The Fixer" go to https://www.amjadtadros.com/Chapters00:00 Becoming the Fixer02:23 The Role of a Fixer04:11 Investigative Journalism and Collaboration07:24 Ethical Challenges in Reporting10:50 The Story of Curveball23:21 Journalistic Integrity and Neutrality25:46 The Power of Storytelling26:42 The Significance of Overlooked Global Issues28:36 Reporting from Conflict Zones37:11 Determining the Credibility of a Story43:47 Impact of Historical Context on Current Events