• Veteran journalist and author Robert Fisk dies aged 74

    From Steve Hayes@21:1/5 to All on Tue Nov 3 09:24:05 2020
    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

    ----
    --
    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

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)