This week on the Substack Writers Salon, I sat down with Amjad Tadros, four-time Emmy-winning investigative journalist, CBS News’ Middle East producer for over 30 years, and author of the new memoir The Fixer.
I won’t give it all away. But I will tell you this:
In 1993, Amjad survived a US cruise missile strike on his Baghdad hotel. He was covered in glass, alone, certain he was going to die.
A few days later, the door to his hospital ward swung open, lights, cameras, and Saddam Hussein himself. Amjad asked him for a kiss. He got one. And that single photo ended up protecting his career for years. (Saddam even sent him a gift every January 17th after that.)
We also got into:
What a “fixer” actually does — and why he never wanted to be called a “producer”
The $24 million in cash he spent in Iraq for CBS, and the 10-meter wall of receipts that became his memoir’s secret weapon
Why being called “fake news” broke his heart enough to finally finish the book
His one line I can’t stop thinking about: “If we don’t write our own history, somebody else will write it for us.”
It’s a conversation about war, truth-telling, and what it costs to be the person standing between two worlds.
You can follow the full conversation in the video above.
📖 Get The Fixer on Amazon.
✍️ And follow Amjad Tadros. He just joined Substack. Give him a warm welcome.
