This clown isn't important. He works on a minor Texas rag and, I suspect, sympathizes with Fisk and the other brownshirts. Be Seeing You,
Chris
Posted on 05/21/2002 4:36:36 AM PDT by Int
A Better Man Than They
Robert Fisk is Real Reporter, Something
Most of His Petty Critics Will Never Be
by Derek Copold
Admittedly, Mr. Robert Fisk’s latest column spends more time wallowing in self-pity than addressing any real arguments, but still, it makes one thing very clear: Mr. Fisk is not loved by all. Ugly letters and e-mail pour in, and rival columnists barely bother to suppress their glee when he’s beaten by Afghans. Mr. Fisk has even been threatened by a Hollywood big shot; Actor John Malkovich mentioned—in jest, one hopes—that he would like to shoot the Independent reporter dead. Oh yes, there can be no doubt on this point, a lot of people dislike Mr. Fisk, and do so intensely.
I am not one of those people. In fact, I enjoy Mr. Fisk’s dispatches.
Why should I favor this man’s work, the work of a leftist and alleged anti-American? Because he gets the facts. Wherever a crisis breaks out, The Independent’s readership can almost always count on Mr. Fisk being there, asking unwelcome questions and revealing information that those in authority would rather not have made public. I started reading Mr. Fisk during the Kosovo bombings, which I abhorred, and still do. Time and again he called NATO out on its sordid little lies during that villainous attack on a country that had done the West no harm. The NATO-crats hated him so much at the time they called him "Bob Fiskic." Ever since, I made it a point to read Fisk’s columns whenever possible, and when I do, I almost always learn something new, even when I profoundly disagree with him.
Of course his work has its biases, but when you come down to it there really is no such thing as an unbiased reporter. To its credit, The Independent usually publishes his reports under the heading of "Argument", which is a far more honest approach than that taken by American journalists, who make a great show of nattily putting on airs of objectivity as they tailor facts to fit their point of view.
But it isn’t Mr. Fisk’s interjecting an opinion per se that upsets people. Rather, they are more upset by his expressing opinions they don’t like, especially when it comes to Israel. His open contempt for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his repeated belief that Sharon was responsible for the 1982 Sabra and Shatilla massacres, where Christian Falangists murdered hundreds of Palestinian civilians, enrages Israel’s friends. Mr. Fisk has also cast a fishy eye on Israel’s previous governments, Labour or Likud, and spares no effort castigating their abuses. And because he often files his reports from the very place he’s discussing, Mr. Fisk’s criticisms pack a particularly powerful punch. His on-site presence lends his commentaries an immediacy which makes the shrieking, rote party-line analysis offered by such human gramophones as Charles Krauthammer, George Will, or Calvin Thomas pale in comparison. His office is that of the war reporters of old, on the scene, issuing dispatches from the front. Unlike the aforementioned gramophones, Mr. Fisk doesn’t simply fly into Ben Gurion Airport and then allow himself to be shuttled around by some Likud flunkie. Instead, he gets off his ass, leaves the guides behind, and then goes to where the action is.
This is reporting. Yes, this is also biased reporting, but as any man who has studied or seen combat can attest, unbiased war reporting is to journalism what taste- and nutrition-free food are to the culinary arts. Think of your favorite columnist. Does he go out and take these kinds of risks?
It is also noteworthy that, while Mr. Fisk scathingly attacks Israeli policy, he by no means gives the other side a free pass, as is often alleged. Words like "corrupt" and "self-serving" appear regularly when Fisks discusses Yassir Arafat and other Palestinians. Indeed, Mr. Fisk, based on his own eyewitness observations, often points out that Mr. Arafat’s strategy consists of provoking his enemies into committing massacres and then callously using the resulting sympathy to advance his cause, not to mention his career, hardly a loving embrace. In practically every column he writes about Israel these days, Fisk vehemently condemns the abhorrent suicide bombings of Hamas and others. Yet there are many, often unhinged by their own passions, who maintain Mr. Fisk is an Islamist John Reed. His June 9, 2001 column, which sweepingly condemns "…the barbarity, torture, hangings, head-choppings and human rights abuses…" committed by Muslim nations and abetted by Muslims, should suffice to silence this foolish accusation. Errors he makes, but Mr. Fisk is his own man.
That said, let’s set Mr. Fisk aside for now and turn our attention to what passes for opinion reporting in the States, and in particular the Weekly Standard. Here we have the perfect example of a typically inadequate American opinion journal. This journal essentially prints articles which seem to do one of three things: (1) hector the President of the United States into beginning one war after the next. (2) Act as mutual admiration billboard for Bill Kristol and his buddies, and, of course… (3) Apologize for Israel and attack anyone who dares question Tel-Aviv’s actions. From what I’ve read, none of the Standard’s regular writers—the Americans, I mean—have so much as bothered to go to this nation they so love and examine the facts on a long-term basis. When they do go, it’s for a quick fact-finding tour, something usually prepared by the Israeli government that lets our phony-brave Zionists boast, "I was there", yet remain comfortably distant from any sight or sound that might threaten their preconceived views. The Standard rarely features any on-site reporting at all, and when they do, it’s usually a snarky running commentary about some left-wing event.
This isn’t to say the Standard shouldn’t pan leftists, but it would be nice to fit in something on a grander scale, too. Particularly as it prides itself on being bold in the foreign arena. (In fairness, I should note that the Standard isn’t the only offender; much of what I’ve written about Kristol’s magazine can also be said of the National Review, its main competitor. The New Republic, another war-happy rag, does better, but its reporters don’t have the same aggressiveness or independence that distinguishes a Robert Fisk from the rest.)
Going back the Standard, we can see its standard approach to foreign opinion reporting in two articles filed by a Mr. Victorino Matus, who covered the debate about the Turkish occupation of North Cyprus from the comfort of Washington DC. Mr. Matus’ first report describes a dinner he had with the Greek Cypriot ambassador. In it he waxes rhapsodic about the "savory sweetness" of Commandaria wine while compliantly agreeing with his hosts that Turkey should leave Cyprus. Mr. Matus even closes his piece with a cute throwaway line about the charms of Commandaria enticing disparate ideologues like Christopher Hitchens and the Heritage Foundation to agree on this issue.
Mr. Matus then runs into trouble. The Turks want their swing at him, too, you see. So the Standard’s reporter meets a Turkish Cypriot. Mr. Matus then listens to the Turkish side of the story. It’s all very nice and polite, but extremely unhelpful. Mr. Matus fails to give his readers any new information. Practically everything in those articles can be found by going to Google.com and searching on the term "Cyprus", including the excessively saccharine praise he ladles on Commandaria.
I admit that I’m being somewhat unfair, perhaps hypocritical, in picking on Mr. Matus. He hasn’t violated any journalistic ethics, and he delivers an apparently adequate account of what he saw and heard while being up front about the fact that he’s expressing his own opinion. Indeed, as the articles were only published on the web, what’s the harm? After all, we at The Texas Mercury, it could be argued, don’t even do this much, for we limit ourselves to mere criticism.
All of this is true (though in defense of my magazine I note that, unlike the Weekly Standard, Rupert Murdoch doesn’t pay our bills. We make as many forays into foreign lands as money allows). But just because Weekly Standard didn’t commit a sin doesn’t mean it was righteous either. The Weekly Standard and its readers would have been far better off if Mr. Matus had been put on a flight to Cyprus to write about what he could see with his own two eyes, as opposed to his simply regurgitating propaganda.
And this brings us back to Mr. Fisk. Whatever flaws he may have, Robert Fisk would not have done what Mr. Matus did. He would not regurgitate propaganda. Of course, Mr. Fisk would have injected some of his own biases and prejudices into his final product, but so what? Biased reporting trumps no reporting. Every time. Until journals like the Weekly Standard figure this out, they will remain in Robert Fisk’s shadow, and deservedly so. Compared to him they’re nothing more than a crowd of envious midgets capable of doing nothing more than whine about his "unfair coverage."
This clown isn't important. He works on a minor Texas rag and, I suspect, sympathizes with Fisk and the other brownshirts. Be Seeing You,
Chris
Surely the author makes a valid point here?!
The writer's comparison of George Will and Bill Kristol to Fisk (finding the previous two wanting, of course) is the most transparent of straw men. Fisk is, for all his faults, a war correspondent. Will and Kristol are columnists. They are supposed to be biased. Their function is different than Fisk's is supposed to be. Fisk claims to be reporting the "facts" as he sees them. That's the problem. He injects his personal biases into his reporting more than any reporter I know. It is not good enough to say, as the writer does:
Biased reporting trumps no reporting. Every time.
Bullshit. Please accept my apologies for the use of a barnyard epithet, but this is line of argument is a steaming pile of bull feces piled twenty feet high and half an acre wide.
Those clowns at the Texas Mercury don't share the same opinion as most Americans. If you're not going to be fair in your reporting, then you might as well find another line of work. Readers expect to read something by some one who endeavors to tell both sides of the story. Fisk accepted almost every lie the Pallies told, up to and including the Jenin "massacre" blood libel. His anti-American, pro-Jihadist reporting has consigned him to the Useful Idiot branch of Western Leftism. It is not enough to praise some fellow for his ability to get off his ass and go out and get a story if the story that comes back is the 21st Century answer to Jews poisoning wells.
Robert Fisk is both revolting and entertaining to read, as he is an individual who is in romantic embrace with the Arab world. However, his reporting has descended (if it ever could have) into the kind of anti-Semitic prattle best exemplified by Julius Streicher and the staff of the Volkishcer Beobachter.
Be Seeing You,
Chris
Absolutely. His citations of Palestinian barbarism are few and far between. He tends to use the term "wicked" to describe the bombings of, say, a Passover seder. He then spends the next ten paragraphs excoriating the Israelis for having the temerity to defend themselves.
Fisk is a Jew-baiter. Just plug in "Zionist" or "Israeli" for "Jew" and you'll understand my distaste for the man.
Finally, I have little use for an individual who cannot understand why it is imperative that the United States win this war, who blames the United States for the attack on its homeland, as if we held a gun to the head of bin Laden and ordered him to attack us.
Be Seeing You,
Chris
Just kiddin' ya, bud.;O)
I'm sure the Stricklers are nice folks but I don't know how they would react if they knew one of their gifs was on a FreeRepublic profile so shhhhhh. :-)
C'mon metesky, shape up. That's 2 misrepresentations of me in 1 thread! :-)
#2.)An assumption (I know, I know, and I deseve a put down for that) is not a deliberate misrepresentation.
#3.) What about the joke? Damn it, man, what about the joke?
As for the rest, I remain relaxed because I never thought we had a problem.
See ya on the forum, Bud.
I did. I think that's the first time I ever put two smilies in a posting.(#16)
See ya!
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