Shoddy journalism of the New York Times on Syria

This is rather hilarious.  So how do Western media get to verify whether a story from Syria is true or not true?  Well, they ask a Syrian guy who lives in Washington, DC.  "Radwan Ziadeh, a Syrian human rights advocate who is a visiting scholar at George Washington University in Washington, disputed the report. “Of course it is not true,” he said in a telephone interview."