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Robert Fisk – Death Of A ‘Controversial’ Journalist
10th November 2020
<https://www.medialens.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/rsz_2fisk_pic-678x330.png>
Robert Fisk, the Independent’s Middle East correspondent, died on 30 October
aged 74. In reviewing his life and career, the newspaper for which he worked
for more than two decades
<https://independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/robert-fisk-death-middle-east-correspondent-journalist-dublin-b1514866.html>
wrote of their star reporter:
‘Much of what Fisk wrote was controversial…’
As John Pilger <https://twitter.com/johnpilger/status/1323214193441603585>
noted, in describing Fisk’s journalism as ‘controversial’ the Independent was
using a ‘weasel word’.
The Washington Post published a
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/robert-fisk-daring-but-controversial-british-war-correspondent-and-author-dies-at-74/2020/11/02/a5a84dd2-1d14-11eb-ba21-f2f001f0554b_story.html>
piece titled:
‘Robert Fisk, daring but controversial British war correspondent and author,
dies at 74’
Al Jazeera’s
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/11/2/veteran-journalist-robert-fisk-dies-aged-74-irish-times>
piece was subtitled:
‘The Independent newspaper confirms its acclaimed and controversial journalist
died following a short illness.’
A piece in Le Monde Diplomatique was titled:
‘La mort de Robert Fisk, grand reporter au Moyen-Orient et personnage
controversé’ (Christophe Ayad, Le Monde Diplomatique Online, 4 November 2020)
The trend is clear. When The Times subjected Fisk to one of its full-on hit
pieces in April 2018, it
<https://thetimes.co.uk/article/critics-leap-on-reporter-robert-fisk-s-failure-to-find-signs-of-gas-attack-fx7f3fs2r>
wrote: ‘Fisk is no stranger to controversy.’
So why do ‘mainstream’ commentators feel obliged to red-flag Fisk’s journalism
with ‘controversial’ in this way, and why is it a ‘weasel word’?
Consider that the likes of the BBC’s Andrew Marr, the Guardian’s Martin Chulov
and The Times’ David Aaronovitch, and numerous others, will never be described
as ‘controversial’, despite their highly controversial, in fact outrageous,
warmongering bias.
Marr is not labelled ‘controversial’ for
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/apr/18/theobserver9> supporting a
ground invasion of Serbia in 1999:
‘I want to put the Macbeth option: which is that we’re so steeped in blood we
should go further. If we really believe Milosevic is this bad, dangerous and
destabilising figure we must ratchet this up much further. We should now be
saying that we intend to put in ground troops.’ (Marr, ‘Do we give war a
chance?’, The Observer, 18 April 1999)
Was that ‘controversial’? How about
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_JC371jxPI&t=6s> this?
Was it ‘controversial’ for the Guardian to
<https://www.dumptheguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/06/the-guardian-view-on-the-election-endgame-end-trumps-war-on-the-truth>
write this of the country that has relentlessly waged war and supported
tyranny around the world since 1945:
‘Joe Biden looks to have done enough to win the White House… He will have to
reassert America’s role as the global problem-solver.’ (Our emphasis)?
Was it ‘controversial’ for the supposedly impartial global news agency,
Associated Press, to
<https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-elections-voting-fraud-and-irregularities-colombia-united-states-349092605f61c161109c1efb8d0c9e64?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_medium=AP&utm_source=Twitter>
write this of the United States:
‘For decades, the U.S. has been an advocate for democracy abroad, using
diplomatic pressure and even direct military intervention in the name of
spreading the principles of a pluralistic system with a free and fair vote for
political leaders’?
An awesome level of gullibility is required to believe that the direct military
‘interventions’ (wars) in oil-rich Iraq and Libya were about spreading
pluralistic principles. Whether or not Iraqis have had ‘a free and fair vote’
since 2003 is a matter of complete indifference to Western politics and
journalism.
It turns out that the term ‘controversial’ is only applied in corporate media
to political writers and leaders deemed ‘controversial’ by elite interests.
This was unwittingly made clear by the big brains at the BBC who
<https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-54774539> noted that Fisk ‘drew
controversy for his sharp criticism of the US and Israel, and of Western
foreign policy’. If Fisk had drawn ‘controversy’ from China, Iran or North
Korea, the ‘weasel word’ would not have appeared in the Beeb’s analysis.
A second
<https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/robert-fisk-obituary-died-journalist-middle-east-b1538618.html>
piece in the Independent also allowed us to read between the letters that make
up ‘controversial’:
‘Often writing and speaking of his pity for the people he saw being killed at
the same time as becoming a forthright critic of the US and Israel. His writing
could be controversial – such as his later reporting on Syria…’ (Our emphasis)
Fisk is not alone, of course. The BBC controversially echoed numerous other
media in
<http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-latin-america-20912436/venezuela-s-president-hugo-chavez-dies>
describing Hugo Chavez as ‘Venezuela’s… controversial president’.
If Chavez was ‘controversial’, which national leader is not? Should they all be
described as ‘controversial’? By the way, Biden very controversially
<https://www.cfr.org/article/presidential-candidates-venezuela> described
Chavez’ successor Nicolas Maduro as a ‘tyrant’, adding:
‘I was among the first Democratic foreign policy voices to recognize Juan
Guaidó as Venezuela’s legitimate leader and to call for Maduro to resign.’ (See
<https://covertactionmagazine.com/2020/11/08/beware-of-the-hawk-what-to-expect-from-the-biden-administration-on-foreign-policy/>
here for more on Biden’s grim record.)
As we have
<https://www.medialens.org/2019/venezuela-blitz-part-1-tyrants-dont-have-free-elections/>
discussed, these were deeply embarrassing propaganda claims in pursuit of
regime change. Even the BBC was eventually
<https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-54576198> forced to give up the
pretence that Guaidó was ‘interim leader’, reverting to the title ‘opposition
leader’.
Although Obama bombed seven Muslim countries from 2009 to 2017, all but
destroying Libya, the BBC would, of course, never refer to ‘America’s
controversial president, Barack Obama’, or even to ‘America’s controversial
president, George W. Bush’. Specific Bush policies might be described as
‘controversial’, but the term would never be applied as a broad brush
description of who he is.
In corporate media newspeak, ‘controversial’ can actually be translated as
‘offensive to power’. The term is intended as a scare word to warn readers that
the labelled person is ‘dodgy’, ‘suspect’: ‘Handle with care!’ The journalist
is also signalling to his or her editors and other colleagues: ‘I’m not one of
“them”!’
The same effect can be achieved by praising establishment figures. Peter Oborne
did not cover himself in glory by
<https://twitter.com/OborneTweets/status/1323201698169556992> tweeting:
‘Tony Blair has emerged as probably the most authoritative and persuasive voice
during the Covid crisis.’
As we <https://twitter.com/medialens/status/1323337079091273729> noted:
‘If it was some other leader of some other country who had waged an illegal war
of aggression killing one million people, Oborne might not have sent this.’
Journalists and leaders who serve power, including ‘Teflon Tony’, somehow
retain fundamental ‘respectability’, are welcomed by elite media and the powers
that be. (For completists interested in this subliminal misuse of language, the
same use is made of the term ‘narcissist’: Julian Assange, Russell Brand,
George Galloway, Glenn Greenwald, Seumas Milne, John Pilger, Edward Snowden,
Hugo Chavez, and – alas! – us at Media Lens, have all been repeatedly accused
of ‘narcissism’. Recently, Andrew Rawnsley
<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/01/mr-corbyns-self-pity-betrays-the-victims-of-antisemitism-scandal>
wrote of the almost comically humble and selfless Jeremy Corbyn:
‘Many things have been said about his character over the years, but one thing
has not been said enough: he is a narcissist.’
An unwitting, backhanded compliment from the Observer’s great warmonger. (See
our book ‘Propaganda Blitz’ for more discussion on ‘narcissism’, Pluto Press,
2018, pp.54-55)
‘How Do They Get Away With These Lies?
In 2004, at a time when all of US-UK journalism was
<https://www.medialens.org/2004/rapid-response-media-alert-let-freedom-reign-the-big-lie/>
celebrating the ‘transfer of sovereignty’ from the forces still occupying Iraq
and stealing its oil, Fisk was a rare voice mocking the charade:
‘Alice in Wonderland could not have improved on this. The looking-glass
reflects all the way from Baghdad to Washington… Those of us who put quotation
marks around “liberation” in 2003 should now put quotation marks around
“sovereignty”.’ (Fisk, ‘The handover: Restoration of Iraqi sovereignty – or
Alice in Wonderland?’ The Independent, 29 June 2004)
In 2014, after Tony Blair made one of his frequent attempts to exonerate
himself in relation to Iraq while calling for more violence to bomb Syria
better, the Guardian editors performed painful contortions in declaring Blair’s
analysis ‘thoughtful’ if ‘wrong-headed’. Fisk’s
<https://www.medialens.org/2014/blair-bombing-iraq-better-again/> response to
Blair was different:
‘How do they get away with these lies?’
Fisk was also a virtual lone ‘mainstream’ voice
<https://www.medialens.org/2013/limited-but-persuasive-evidence-syria-sarin-libya-lies/>
contesting the US-UK’s audacious,
<http://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/world/middleeast/cia-syria-rebel-arm-train-trump.html>
well-funded attempts to re-run their Iraq ‘weapons of mass destruction’ scam
in Syria:
‘Washington’s excuse for its new Middle East adventure – that it must arm
Assad’s enemies because the Damascus regime has used sarin gas against them –
convinces no-one in the Middle East. Final proof of the use of gas by either
side in Syria remains almost as nebulous as President George W. Bush’s claim
that Saddam’s Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.’
For this, as the obituaries make unsubtly clear, Fisk was never forgiven.
An obituary in The Times commented on Fisk:
‘While he was an outstandingly poetic writer, he developed an emotional
obsession with the plight of the Palestinian people and a visceral dislike of
the Israeli government and its allies, especially America. In the jargon of
news reporting he “went native”, unable to provide a dispassionate account of
events and their context.’ (‘Robert Fisk: Obituaries – Trenchant yet lyrical
foreign correspondent who interviewed Osama bin Laden three times and was often
accused of “going native”‘, The Times, 3 Nov 2020)
Given the appalling racism and ethnic cleansing faced by the Palestinian
people, the reference to Fisk ‘going native’ was a grotesque observation.
The Times’ noted, of course, that Fisk ‘remained no stranger to controversy’.
It asked us to believe that ‘critics poured cold water on Fisk’s writing’,
although ‘awards committees did not’. In translation: Fisk was subjected to
exactly the kind of ugly propaganda smears from ‘critics’ contained in The
Times’ obituary.
The comments are no great surprise, given the honesty with which Fisk
<https://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/press/robert-fisk-why-i-had-to-leave-the-times-2311569.html>
described his departure from The Times to join the Independent in 1989:
‘The end came for me when I flew to Dubai in 1988 after the USS Vincennes [a US
Navy guided missile cruiser] had shot down an Iranian passenger airliner over
the Gulf. Within 24 hours, I had spoken to the British air traffic controllers
at Dubai, discovered that US ships had routinely been threatening British
Airways airliners, and that the crew of the Vincennes appeared to have
panicked. The foreign desk told me the report was up for the page-one splash. I
warned them that American “leaks” that the IranAir pilot was trying to
suicide-crash his aircraft on to the Vincennes were rubbish. They agreed.
‘Next day, my report appeared with all criticism of the Americans deleted, with
all my sources ignored. The Times even carried an editorial suggesting the
pilot was indeed a suicider. A subsequent US official report and accounts by US
naval officers subsequently proved my dispatch correct. Except that Times
readers were not allowed to see it.’
Fisk said that he believed Murdoch did not personally intervene. However:
‘He didn’t need to. He had turned The Times into a tame, pro-Tory, pro-Israeli
paper shorn of all editorial independence.’
Echoing virtually every other obituary, the Guardian commented that Fisk
‘tended to absolve the Assad regime of some of the worst crimes credited to
it’, which had ‘provoked a backlash, even among his anti-imperialist acolytes’.
It is ironic that the Guardian should highlight Fisk’s supposed tendency to
‘absolve’ Syria of ‘the worst crimes credited to it’. Whistleblowing
revelations relating to OPCW and the alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma,
Syria, while almost completely ignored by the ‘mainstream’, have overwhelmingly
vindicated Fisk and made a nonsense of official claims. See recent comments
<https://thegrayzone.com/2020/10/20/chomsky-opcw-cover-up-of-probe-undermining-us-led-bombing-of-syria-is-shocking/>
here from Noam Chomsky, and excellent in-depth analysis
<https://thegrayzone.com/category/opcw-douma/> here.
The Guardian naturally deployed the ‘weasel word’ in
<https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/nov/03/robert-fisk-obituary> noting
‘all the controversy generated by his later commentary on the evils of western,
and specifically US, involvement in the Middle East’. This was followed by a
distorted version of ‘balance’:
‘Some of Fisk’s most ardent admirers have suggested that to describe his
journalism as controversial is a vulgar slight.’
Some people might think so, but only ‘ardent admirers’, ‘acolytes’ – themselves
controversial narcissists.
Who knows where this unsubtle red-flagging of Fisk’s journalism as
‘controversial’ would have ended? The intent behind ‘mainstream’ propaganda,
particularly on Fisk’s Syria reporting, has increasingly been to suggest that
Fisk was morally tainted; that he got it badly, shamefully wrong. Flitting like
barely-glimpsed bats at the back of the readers mind are supposed to be terms
like ‘Assad apologist’, ‘genocide denial’. Not Holocaust denial exactly, but a
shameful mutation of the same moral blindness.
Another rare, excellent ‘mainstream’ journalist, Patrick Cockburn, dispensed
with the herdthink, copycat smears, and
<https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/robert-fisk-iraq-2003-patrick-cockburn-the-troubles-b1539514.html>
captured the truth of a journalist who was ‘a meticulous and highly-informed
reporter, one who responded sceptically – and rigorously investigated – the
partisan claims of all parties, be they gunmen, army officers or government
officials’. Cockburn added:
‘He took nothing for granted and was often openly contemptuous of those who
did. He did not invent the old journalist saying “never believe anything until
it is officially denied” but he was inclined to agree with its sceptical
message. He was suspicious of journalists who cultivated diplomats and
“official sources” that could not be named and whose veracity we are invited to
take on trust.’
This explains exactly why Fisk was and is viewed as ‘controversial’; a word
that did not appear in Cockburn’s summing up.
The Invisible Tweets
A storm had been made to brew around Fisk’s reputation in recent years. But it
had not yet reached the Category 5 propaganda hurricane that engulfed Jeremy
Corbyn who, like Fisk, ‘drew controversy for his sharp criticism of the US and
Israel, and of Western foreign policy’.
Corbyn was not just accused of anti-semitism and Holocaust denial; he was
accused of being a de facto Nazi who ‘wants to reopen Auschwitz’. These
<https://www.medialens.org/2019/reopening-auschwitz-the-conspiracy-to-stop-corbyn/>
claims were baseless and insane, but not ‘controversial’.
By contrast, we discovered what is deemed ‘controversial’ on Twitter on
November 3. That day, we tried three times to tweet a link to a Red Pepper
<https://www.redpepper.org.uk/being-jewish-in-north-islington-labour-party/>
article by Lynne Segal as she ‘looks back on her experience of 40 years as a
party member in [Corbyn’s] constituency’. We
<https://twitter.com/medialens/status/1323909381365391362> tweeted a screenshot
of this important passage from Segal’s excellent piece:
‘Right now, along with the many other Jewish activists I know in Islington
North, I am simply devastated that this process has climaxed in the suspension
of our cherished MP, and former leader. It’s so hard to accept that I must
repeat again what every Jewish member I know in Islington North has frequently
confirmed and it is we who actually know and regularly meet with Jeremy Corbyn
– unlike most of critics. What we can confirm is that as Jews in North
Islington we have always felt more than safe, more than welcome, unfailingly
supported, in everything we do in the borough, and the Party. As it happens, we
often feel this all the more strongly as Jews, knowing that – unlike Corbyn –
so many who choose to speak in our name completely disrespect our commitment to
antisemitism and racism of all kinds in struggles for a better world, including
the vital struggle for Palestinian rights.’
We also <https://twitter.com/medialens/status/1323909381365391362> tweeted a
screenshot of this passage:
‘So, let me provide a few pertinent facts. Over the years, Corbyn has had
mutually supportive relations with the practising Jewish community in
Islington, attending Shabbat dinners with the orthodox Chabad Rabbi, Mendy
Korer, and attending numerous other official Jewish events in North London.
Against some local resistance, Corbyn promoted the installation of a plaque on
a demolished synagogue site in 2015 to celebrate Jewish life in the borough.
Unlike most of his critics in Westminster, Corbyn unfailingly turned up to vote
for motions addressing anti-Semitism in Parliament, just as he worked
tirelessly against racism on every front.’
This is extremely powerful, credible evidence exposing the claims against
Corbyn, not just as a sham, but as a monstrous reversal of the truth.
We know what our readers like and we know how they will likely react to our
tweets, so we were surprised that the two tweeted screenshots did not
immediately pick up a few likes and retweets. In fact, after four hours, they
had not been liked or retweeted by anyone. We tried tweeting the screenshots
again, and again they received no likes or retweets. We checked with friends
and it became clear that while these tweets were visible to us, they had been
secretly <https://twitter.com/medialens/status/1323909381365391362> rendered
invisible to everyone else by Twitter without us knowing. Unlike the smears
unleashed on Corbyn for five years, our words had been banished because they
were deemed ‘controversial’ by a giant, profit-maximising tech corporation. And
we are not alone; we discovered that independent journalist Glenn Greenwald had
earlier <https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1322883275602468870> tweeted:
‘I posted this tweet 3 times and all 3 times it just won’t appear in my
time-line, allowing nobody to see it. Genuinely confused. Is anyone else
experiencing this problem?’
No surprise, Greenwald is also ‘controversial’, having, like Fisk, Corbyn and
us, attracted ‘controversy’ ‘for his sharp criticism of the US and Israel, and
of Western foreign policy’.
On Twitter, in response to corporate media censoring Donald Trump, science
writer Marcus Chown
<https://twitter.com/marcuschown/status/1324644615883018246> commented:
‘This is what we DESPERATELY need in the UK. We need our media to interrupt
speeches by Johnson and others and point out to viewers their lies. Retweet if
you would like to seee [sic] this happen.’
If giant, profit-maximising, advertiser-dependent corporate media decide it is
their job and right to censor political leaders like Trump and Johnson, they
will have no qualms at all about censoring you, us, and everyone else. Is that
what we want? What on earth qualifies Big Business as an arbiter of Truth?
DE
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