Robert Fisk

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Robert Fisk
At a book festival in Christchurch, New Zealand, 2008
Born	12 July 1946 (1946-07-12) (age 62) Maidstone, Kent, England
Education	Lancaster University (B.A., 1968) Trinity College, Dublin (Ph.D., 1985)
Occupation	Middle East correspondent for The Independent
Ethnicity	British
Notable credit(s)	Jacob's Award, Amnesty International UK Press Awards, British Press Awards, International Journalist of the Year, "Reporter of the Year", David Watt prize, Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize
Official website

Robert Fisk (born 12 July 1946, Maidstone, Kent) is an award-winning English writer and journalist. Middle East correspondent of the The Independent, he has been based mainly in Beirut for more than 30 years.^[1] Fisk holds more British and International Journalism awards than any other foreign correspondent.^[2]

Contents 1 Career 1.1 Early career 1.2 Osama bin Laden and War in Afghanistan 1.3 Iraq War 2 Awards 3 "Fisking" 4 Books and other works 4.1 Video documentary 4.2 Forgeries misattributed to Robert Fisk 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Career

The New York Times once described Robert Fisk as "probably the most famous foreign correspondent in Britain."^[3] He reported the Northern Ireland troubles in the 1970s, the Portuguese Revolution in 1974, the Lebanese Civil War, the Iranian revolution in 1979, the Soviet war in Afghanistan, the Iran–Iraq War, the Gulf War and the invasion of Iraq in 2003. A vernacular Arabic speaker, he is one of few Western journalists to have interviewed Osama bin Laden, three times between 1994 and 1997.^[4][5] Awards include being voted International Journalist of the Year seven times.

Fisk has said that journalism must, "challenge authority, all authority, especially so when governments and politicians take us to war." He has quoted with approval the Israeli journalist Amira Hass: "There is a misconception that journalists can be objective ... What journalism is really about is to monitor power and the centres of power." ^[6]

He has written at length on how much of contemporary conflict has its origin, in his view, in lines drawn on maps: "After the allied victory of 1918, at the end of my father's war, the victors divided up the lands of their former enemies. In the space of just seventeen months, they created the borders of Northern Ireland, Yugoslavia and most of the Middle East. And I have spent my entire career — in Belfast and Sarajevo, in Beirut and Baghdad — watching the people within those borders burn." ^[7]

[edit] Early career

Fisk received a BA in English Literature at Lancaster University in 1968^[8] and a PhD in Political Science, from Trinity College, Dublin in 1985.^[9] The title of his doctoral thesis was "A condition of limited warfare: Eire’s neutrality and the relationship between Dublin, Belfast and London, 1939–1945".^[9] He first worked on the Sunday Express diary column before a disagreement with the editor, John Junor, prompted a move to The Times.^[10] From 1972–75 Fisk served as Belfast correspondent for The Times, before becoming its correspondent in Portugal covering the aftermath of the Carnation Revolution. He then was appointed Middle East correspondent (1976–1988). When a story of his was spiked after Rupert Murdoch's takeover, he moved to The Independent, with his first report published there on 28 April 1989.

Fisk has been living in Beirut since 1976,^[11] and was present in Beirut throughout the Lebanese civil war. He was one of the first journalists to visit the scene of the Sabra and Shatila massacre in Lebanon, as well as the Syrian Hama Massacre. His book on the Lebanese conflict, Pity the Nation, was first published in 1990. Fisk also reported on the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Kosovo war and the Algerian civil war.

[edit] Osama bin Laden and War in Afghanistan

Fisk is one of the few Western journalists to have interviewed Osama bin Laden - three times (all published by The Independent: December 6, 1993, July 10, 1996, and March 22, 1997). During one of Fisk's interviews with Bin Laden, Fisk noted an attempt by Bin Laden to convert him. Bin Laden said; "Mr Robert, one of our brothers had a dream. He dreamed ... that you were a spiritual person ... this means you are a true Muslim." Fisk replied; "Sheikh Osama, I am not a Muslim ... I am a journalist."^[12]

On the last occasion, in 1997, Osama informed Fisk of his intention to attack America: "Mr Robert, I pray that God permits us to turn America into a shadow of itself."^[13] Fisk condemned the September 11, 2001 attacks, describing them as a "hideous crime against humanity," but denounced the Bush administration's response, fearing "a score of nations" were being identified and positioned as "haters of democracy" or "kernels of evil", and urged a more honest debate om U.S. policy in the Middle East.^[14]

After the U.S. launched its attack on Afghanistan, Fisk was for a time transferred to Pakistan to provide coverage of that conflict. While reporting from there, he was attacked and beaten by a group of Afghan refugees fleeing heavy bombing by the United States Air Force. He was saved from this attack by another Afghan refugee. In his graphic account of his own beating, Fisk pardoned the attackers of responsibility and pointed out that their "brutality was entirely the product of others, of us — of we who had armed their struggle against the Russians and ignored their pain and laughed at their civil war and then armed and paid them again for the 'War for Civilisation' just a few miles away and then bombed their homes and ripped up their families and called them 'collateral damage.'"^[15]

[edit] Iraq War

During the 2003 Iraq War, Fisk was stationed in Baghdad and filed many eyewitness reports. He has criticized other journalists based in Iraq for what he calls their "hotel journalism", literally reporting from one's hotel room without interviews or first hand experience of events.^[16] His opposition to the war brought attacks from pro-war supporters such as the unionist Irish columnist and Senator Eoghan Harris.^[17] and Guardian columnist and war supporter Simon Hoggart.^[18]

[edit] Awards

In 1991, Fisk won a Jacob's Award for his RTÉ Radio coverage of the first Gulf War.^[19] He received Amnesty International UK Press Awards in 1998 for his reports from Algeria and again in 2000 for his articles on the NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999. He received the British Press Awards' International Journalist of the Year seven times, and twice won its "Reporter of the Year" award.^[20] In 2001, he was awarded the David Watt Prize for "outstanding contributions towards the clarification of political issues and the promotion of their greater understanding" for his investigation into the Armenian Genocide by the Turks in 1915.^[21] In 2002 he was the fourth recipient of the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism. More recently, Fisk was awarded the 2006 Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize along with $350,000.^[22]

He was made an honorary Doctor of Laws by the University of St Andrews on June 24, 2004. The Political and Social Sciences department of Ghent University (Belgium) awarded Fisk an honorary doctorate on March 24, 2006. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by the American University of Beirut in June 2006. Trinity College Dublin awarded him a second, honorary, Doctorate in July 2008.^[23]

[edit] "Fisking"

The blogosphere term fisking^[24] refers not to Fisk directly, but to what is done to those who, like him, are being challenged — the fisker begins by copying text from the fiskee, and then produces an interlinear critique pointing out flaws and raising doubts. "The fisker can without too much trouble make the fiskee look ridiculous."^[25] The term originated from partisan attacks on Fisk's credibility,^[26] but has been extended to others, even the Archbishop of Canterbury.^[27]

[edit] Books and other works

Fisk has published a number of books. His 2005 work, "The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East", with its criticism of Western and Israeli approaches to the Middle East, was well-received by critics and students of international affairs, and is perhaps his best-known work.

• The Point of No Return: The Strike which Broke the British in Ulster (1975). London: Times Books/Deutsch. ISBN 0-233-96682-X
• In Time of War: Ireland, Ulster and the Price of Neutrality, 1939-1945 (2001). London: Gill & Macmillan. ISBN 0-7171-2411-8 — (1st ed. was 1983).
• Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War (3rd ed. 2001). London: Oxford University Press; xxi, 727 pages. ISBN 0-19-280130-9 — (1st ed. was 1990).
• The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East (October 2005) London. Fourth Estate; xxvi, 1366 pages. ISBN 1-84115-007-X
• The Age of the Warrior: Selected Writings (2008) London, Fourth Estate ISBN 978 0 00 727073 6

[edit] Video documentary

• From Beirut To Bosnia - Three-part series on Muslims and the West made in 1993

[edit] Forgeries misattributed to Robert Fisk

• Saddam Hussein - From Birth to Martyrdom (2007). Egypt: Ibda; 272 pages. (forged authorship^[28])

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• The Independent,The newspaper which Fisk currently writes for.
• Robert Fisk on Shakespeare and war
• [2]Collections of Fisk's global speaking engagement
• [3], Rachel Cooke, Man of War, The Observer, Sunday April 13 2008
• Latest Robert Fisk Articles
• Journalisted - Articles by Robert Fisk