Dana Chivvis

Liz Flock was just starting out as a reporter in 2011, living in D.C., working at The Washington Post. This was the golden age of blogging and social media. Instagram was just a year old, basically a toddler. Twitter was five. And news outlets realized they could use these blossoming tools of the Internet to do a hybrid version of reporting. They called it the Breaking News Blog.

Liz Flock was just starting out as a reporter in 2011, living in D.C., working at The Washington Post. This was the golden age of blogging and social media. Instagram was just a year old, basically a toddler. Twitter was five. And news outlets realized they could use these blossoming tools of the Internet to do a hybrid version of reporting. They called it the Breaking News Blog.

Liz was a reporter at The Washington Post's Breaking News Blog.

Liz was a reporter at The Washington Post's Breaking News Blog.

Very original.

Very original.

The job was a combination of actual reporting and aggregation, basically reading other reporters' stories and various social media accounts and repackaging it all. I was doing a similar job around this time at AOL News. Our blog was called Surge Desk because we were supposed to create a surge of traffic for the website. Only I worked at AOL News, not the Washington Post.

The job was a combination of actual reporting and aggregation, basically reading other reporters' stories and various social media accounts and repackaging it all. I was doing a similar job around this time at AOL News. Our blog was called Surge Desk because we were supposed to create a surge of traffic for the website. Only I worked at AOL News, not the Washington Post.

So I was reporting on Groundhog Day in Staten Island and writing posts about how solar flares are kind of like the sun is farting. Liz was writing about the Arab Spring.

So I was reporting on Groundhog Day in Staten Island and writing posts about how solar flares are kind of like the sun is farting. Liz was writing about the Arab Spring.

Yeah. And it's just you and one editor. Is that right?

Yeah. And it's just you and one editor. Is that right?

To keep up with all this from her desk in D.C., she followed a bunch of social media accounts and blogs. The Arab Spring, you might remember, was one of the first big social movements to use these online tools to organize. Rightly or wrongly, it was called the Facebook Revolution.

To keep up with all this from her desk in D.C., she followed a bunch of social media accounts and blogs. The Arab Spring, you might remember, was one of the first big social movements to use these online tools to organize. Rightly or wrongly, it was called the Facebook Revolution.

One of the blogs Liz followed was written by a 35-year-old Syrian-American woman named Amina Araf, who had recently moved back to Damascus from the U.S. Her blog was called A Gay Girl in Damascus.

One of the blogs Liz followed was written by a 35-year-old Syrian-American woman named Amina Araf, who had recently moved back to Damascus from the U.S. Her blog was called A Gay Girl in Damascus.

She's openly critical of the Bashar al-Assad regime at a time when the regime was arresting, torturing, and murdering critics and activists. In one post, titled Irony, there's a photo she's taken of a billboard. On it, Assad's smiling face and the head-scratcher of a tagline, Syria believes in you. Below the photo, Amina writes, sure, in all caps and multiple exclamation points. She's provocative.

She's openly critical of the Bashar al-Assad regime at a time when the regime was arresting, torturing, and murdering critics and activists. In one post, titled Irony, there's a photo she's taken of a billboard. On it, Assad's smiling face and the head-scratcher of a tagline, Syria believes in you. Below the photo, Amina writes, sure, in all caps and multiple exclamation points. She's provocative.

Legally, I can't let her read you the rest of this poem. FCC rules. So, a young, pretty, Syrian-American lesbian taunting the brutal Assad regime. It's not much surprise when the secret police show up at her house one day. On April 26th, Amina publishes a post titled, My Father the Hero. She describes a harrowing scene.

Legally, I can't let her read you the rest of this poem. FCC rules. So, a young, pretty, Syrian-American lesbian taunting the brutal Assad regime. It's not much surprise when the secret police show up at her house one day. On April 26th, Amina publishes a post titled, My Father the Hero. She describes a harrowing scene.