Hassan, We Hardly Knew Ye

This is tragic, just tragic. From the New York Times:

Hassan Fattah, who has been an anchor for us in Dubai, dashing off to story after story around the region, is resigning to take up an exciting opportunity, becoming managing editor of a new English-language pan-Arab daily. Hassan originally came to our attention through his work founding Iraq Today, an English-language newspaper in Iraq. He will be mentoring young Arab journalists, and we wish him well.

Please permit me a moment of schaudenfreude. Now, permit me a moment of conspiracy theorizing. Did he jump, or was he pushed? If you had a job as the New York Times Middle East foreign correspondent, would you leave to edit a start-up newspaper? Just curious.