Posted on 11/01/2020 1:25:31 PM PST by FewsOrange
Veteran foreign correspondent and author Robert Fisk has died after suffering a suspected stroke at his Dublin home. It is understood the journalist became unwell on Friday and was admitted to St Vincent’s hospital where he died a short time later. He was 74.
Fisk was one of the most highly regarded and controversial British foreign correspondents of the modern era and was described by the New York Times in 2005 as “probably the most famous foreign correspondent in Britain”. He had a long relationship with Ireland dating back to 1972 when he moved to Belfast to work as Northern Ireland correspondent for the London Times at the height of the Troubles. He subsequently did his PhD in Trinity College, completing a thesis on Ireland’s neutrality during the second World War. He owned a home in Dalkey where he lived for many years. His career in journalism started with the Sunday Express in London but that relationship was brief and he soon moved to the Times.
After making a name for himself reporting from Northern Ireland for that paper, Fisk relocated briefly to Portugal and then to Beirut where he worked as Middle East correspondent, once again for the Times. He covered, among other events, the Lebanese civil war, Russian invasion of Afghanistan, Iranian revolution and the Iran-Iraq War. He joined the London Independent in 1989 after a row with the Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper and continued to work for that publication until his death. It is understood that he was planning his return to the Middle East in recent days. He reported extensively on the first Gulf War basing himself for a time in Baghdad where he was fiercely critical of other foreign correspondents whom he accused of covering the conflict from their hotel rooms.
He also covered the US-led war wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and frequently condemned US involvement in the region. Fisk was one of very few western reporters to interview Osama Bin Laden, something he did on three occasions in the 1990s. He also covered five Israeli invasions, the Algerian civil war, Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait and the 2011 Arab revolutions. He worked in the Balkans during the conflict there and more recently covered the conflict in Syria.
He received numerous awards over the course of his career including the Orwell Prize for Journalism, British Press Awards International Journalist of the Year and Foreign Reporter of the Year on multiple occasions. He was given honorary degrees and doctorates from universities in several countries. And in 2009 was awarded Trinity College Dublin’s Historical Society’s gold medal, bestowed upon those who have made a significant contribution in the public sphere towards forwarding the society’s ideals of debate, discussion and public discourse.
Among his most well regarded books were The Point of No Return: The Strike Which Broke the British in Ulster, Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War and The Great War for Civilisation – The Conquest of the Middle East.
Pop the champagne. Good riddance to this Israel hater
[Sniffle!] Well, I’m over it.
Few people end up having their surname become a verb but, so wretched was his ‘reporting’, Mr. Fisk was so ‘honored’.
Fisking
The word is derived from articles written by Robert Fisk that were easily refuted, and refers to a point-by-point debunking of lies and/or idiocies.
Fisk’s most recent “sin” was going to Syria to consider the faking of chemical weapons attacks by the jihadist rapists and killers backed by the US. The fake attacks blamed on the Syrian regime to justify military intervention by the US UK and France.
Fisk in hell, ya Bastage!
I well remember his slanted coverage.
The Independent Admits Robert Fisk Story Was False
Fisk wasn't famous. He was infamous.
I stopped reading here and my suspicions were confirmed shortly thereafter in the comments.
What about his sister Lute?
Fisk was an anti-Semite and blindly pro Palestinian. His history Pity the Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon (1990) was a farrago of disinformation. He was no friend of the USA, Egypt or Saudi Arabia. He was close to the Islamists and was the first western journalist to interview Osama Bin Laden, which he did in the Sudan in 1993.
Wow. What an honor. That's like being declared the tallest midget in Norway.
Puppy eyes much?
Next up for awards.. William Rivers Pitt and his loser buddy Jason?
Pop the cork on champagne but I’m saving the really good stuff for Chomsky. He’s in his 90’s.
Jason Leopold
Chomsksky could at least debate, he did not use pure hokem, but Buckley took him apart intellectually.
How fake and staged is this photo of Fisk? LOL
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