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.<\/p>\nThose now trying to tarnish his good name are actually inverting the truth. They want to suggest that support for Fisk was cultish and he was hero-worshipped by those incapable of thinking critically. They will say as much about this piece. So let me point out that I am not without my own criticisms of Fisk. I wrote, for example, an article<\/a> criticising some unsubstantiated claims he made during Israel\u2019s massive bombardment of Lebanon in 2006.<\/p>\n But my criticism was precisely the opposite of the blue-tick crowd now\u00a0traducing him. I questioned Fisk for striving to find an implausible middle ground with those establishment blue ticks (before we knew what blue ticks were) by hedging his bets about who was responsible for the destruction of Lebanon. It was a rare, if understandable, example of journalistic timidity from Fisk \u2013 a desire to maintain credibility with his peers, and a reluctance to follow through on where the evidence appeared to lead. Maybe this was a run-in with the pro-Israel crowd and the corporate journalists who echo them that, on this occasion, he did not think worth fighting.<\/p>\n It turns out that the term \u2018controversial\u2019 is only applied in corporate media to political writers and leaders deemed \u2018controversial\u2019 by elite interests.<\/p>\n This was unwittingly made clear by the big brains at the BBC who noted that Fisk \u2018drew controversy for his sharp criticism of the US and Israel, and of Western foreign policy\u2019. If Fisk had drawn \u2018controversy\u2019 from China, Iran or North Korea, the \u2018weasel word\u2019 would not have appeared in the Beeb\u2019s analysis\u2026<\/p>\n In corporate media newspeak, \u2018controversial\u2019 can actually be translated as \u2018offensive to power\u2019. The term is intended as a scare word to warn readers that the labelled person is \u2018dodgy\u2019, \u2018suspect\u2019: \u2018Handle with care!\u2019 The journalist is also signalling to his or her editors and other colleagues: \u2018I\u2019m not one of \u201cthem\u201d!\u2019<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The journalists who now claim Fisk was a fraud and fantasist are many of those who happily worked for papers that readily promoted the gravest lies imaginable to rationalise an illegal attack on Iraq in 2003 and its subsequent occupation. Those publications eagerly supported lies supplied by the US and British governments that Iraq had WMD and that its leader, Saddam Hussein, was colluding with al-Qaeda \u2013 claims that were easily disprovable at the time.<\/p>\n Journalists now attacking Fisk include ones, like the Guardian\u2019s<\/em> Jessica Elgot, who have been at the forefront of advancing the evidence-free antisemitism smears against Corbyn. Or, like the Guardian\u2019s<\/em> Hannah Jane Parkinson, have engaged in another favourite corporate journalist pastime, ridiculing the plight of Julian Assange, a fellow journalist who puts their craven stenography to shame and who is facing a lifetime in a US super-max jail for revealing US war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq.<\/p>\n Even the Guardian\u2019s<\/em> Jason Burke, who claims to have experienced Fisk\u2019s lying first-hand while working for the Observer<\/em> newspaper in 2001 (as was I at that time), has been unable to come up with the goods when challenged, as the pitiable Twitter thread retweeted here confirms:<\/p>\n I assume that Jason Burke wishes us to believe he previously admired Robert Fisk so that his account of his disillusionment sounds that bit more plausible. Because without the alleged incident, his story might sound a lot more like professional jealousy<\/p>\n — Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) November 29, 2020<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Noticeably, there is a pattern to the claims of those now maligning Fisk: they hurry to tell us that he was an inspiration in their student days. They presumably think that mentioning this will suggest their disillusionment was hard-earned and therefore make it sound more plausible. But actually it suggests something different.<\/p>\n It indicates instead that in their youthful idealism they aspired to become a journalist who would dig out the truth, who would monitor centres of power, who would comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. To do, in fact, exactly what Fisk did.<\/p>\n But once they got a footing on the corporate career ladder, they slowly learnt that they would need to adopt a more \u201cnuanced\u201d approach to journalism \u2013 certainly if they hoped to progress up that ladder, earning the right to their blue tick, and gaining a big enough salary to cover the mortgage in London or New York.<\/p>\n In other words, they became everything they despised in their student days. Fisk was the constant reminder of just how much they had sold out. His very existence shamed them for what they were too cowardly to do themselves. And now in death, when he cannot answer back, they are feasting on his corpse like the vultures that they are, until there is nothing left to remind us that, unlike them, Robert Fisk told uncomfortable truths to the very end.<\/p>\n UPDATE:<\/strong><\/p>\n As a reader service, I will do my best to update you on the blue ticks, especially the Guardian\u2019s<\/em>, so keen to \u201cjust add their voice\u201d in defaming Fisk. If you see any more, please send them my way via Facebook or Twitter.<\/p>\n Notice how confidently these journalists join the denunciations of their dead colleague, even though the biggest \u201cadventure\u201d most of them have ever experienced is an all-expenses lunch at El Vino\u2019s.<\/p>\n Just adding my voice to the chorus of those saying what an excellent and necessary article this is by Oz https:\/\/t.co\/zxjiMb7hJ5<\/a><\/p>\n — Marina Hyde (@MarinaHyde) November 30, 2020<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Adam Parsons, Sky\u2019s Europe correspondent:<\/p>\n This is a coruscating, devastating article. And it raises some important questions. — Adam Parsons (@adamparsons) November 30, 2020<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Tim Shipman, political editor of the Sunday Times<\/em>, formerly of the Sunday Telegraph<\/em>, Daily Mail<\/em> and Express<\/em>:<\/p>\n Oliver Kamm, columnist and leader writer for The Times<\/em>, formerly a City banker:<\/p>\n Unfortunately I know this to be correct, and from many sources. I\u2019ve said nothing about Fisk since his death but he was a known fraudster & fabulist.<\/p>\n — Oliver Kamm (@OliverKamm) November 28, 2020<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n The post Establishment Journalists are Piling On to Smear Robert Fisk Now He Cannot Answer Back<\/a> first appeared on Dissident Voice<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n
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Impartial, eye-witness journalism is critical to our society https:\/\/t.co\/5zCK0aGSlT<\/a><\/p>\n\n
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\nThe discomfort Fisk aroused in his peers was all too obvious to anyone working in the corporate media, even in its liberal outlets, as I was during the 1990s. I never heard a good word said about Fisk at the Guardian<\/em> or the Observer<\/em>. His death has allowed an outpouring of resentment towards him that built up over decades from journalists jealous of the fact that no readers will mourn or remember their own passing. Fisk\u2019s journalism spoke up for the downtrodden and spoke directly to the reader rather than, as with his colleagues, pandering to editors in the hope of career advancement. In the immediate wake of his death, his colleagues\u2019 disdain for Fisk was veiled in weaselly language. As Media Lens have noted<\/a>, the favourite term used to describe him in obituaries, even in his own newspaper, was \u201ccontroversial\u201d.<\/p>\n