XPost: alt.obituaries, alt.politics.religion
Veteran journalist and author Robert Fisk dies aged 74
Highly regarded, controversial foreign correspondent had long
relationship with Ireland
Sun, Nov 1, 2020, 20:11 Updated: Sun, Nov 1, 2020, 21:43
Conor Pope
Robert Fisk joined the London Independent in 1989 and continued to
work for that publication until his death.
Veteran foreign correspondent and author Robert Fisk has died after
becoming unwell at his Dublin home on Friday.
It is understood the journalist 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.
Sending refugees to Turkey a misadventure – Robert Fisk
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.
Critical of the United States
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.
Journalist Robert Fisk with President Michael D Higgins at Trinity
College Dublin in 2016. Photograph: Dave Meehan Journalist Robert Fisk
with President Michael D Higgins at Trinity College Dublin in 2016.
Photograph: Dave Meehan
Higgins tribute
President Michael D Higgins expressed his and his wife Sabina’s
condolences to Fisk’s family.
“I have learned with great sadness of the death of Robert Fisk. With
his passing the world of journalism and informed commentary on the
Middle East has lost one of its finest commentators,” said President
Higgins.
“I have had the privilege of knowing Robert Fisk since the 1990s, and
of meeting him in some of the countries of which he wrote with such
great understanding. I met him in Iraq, and last year I had my last
meeting with him in Beirut, during my official visit to Lebanon.
“I knew that his taking of Irish citizenship meant a great deal to
him. And his influence on young practitioners in journalism and
political writing was attested by the huge audiences which attended
the occasions on which he spoke in Ireland.”
Mr Higgins said that generations, not only of Irish people but
worldwide, relied on Fisk for a critical and informed view of what was
taking place in the conflict zones of the world and, even more
important, the influences that were perhaps the source of the
conflict.
Source:
https://t.co/InwQluuI1Y?amp=1
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Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web:
http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog:
http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
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