NEW YORK-Sydney H. Schanberg, a former correspondent for The New York Times awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the genocide in Cambodia in 1975-and whose story of the survival of his assistant inspired the film "The Killing Fields"-has died. He was 82.
The Times reported Schanberg died Saturday in Poughkeepsie, New York. The newspaper cited Charles Kaiser, a friend and former Times reporter who said Schanberg had a heart attack on Tuesday.
"Sydney Schanberg was an historic and courageous correspondent," Dean Baquet, executive editor of The Times, said in a statement. "He was part of a generation of war correspondents who made America understand what was truly happening in Vietnam and Cambodia."
Besides the Pulitzer, he won two George Polk Memorial awards, two Overseas Press Club awards and Sigma Delta Chi's distinguished journalism prize.