Paddy explains that the commissioning process at the Guardian is very open, and
that some stories generate interesting commissioning situations. At the time of writing,
the political crisis in Syria was unfolding quickly, and commissioning has largely being
driven by the live-blog of the story. Paddy had been working on a live interactive
graphical map_updated day by day, and showing the changing state of conflict. This
approach was in turn influenced by reporting decisions made during the Arab Spring
the previous year, as Michael observed: _if the coverage has worked in one part of the
world on a certain aspect, then that is exactly what will kick off all the ideas for the
next news event_ (Robinson, interview, 23 July 2012).