Robert Fisk Makes Things Up
So, finally, Private Eye has published the stories that everybody has heard, but nobody has put in print.
Robert Fisk is widely thought to be a fantasist of Johann Hari-esque proportions.
For his book, Pope telephoned Fisk’s main named source, a British military doctor. He also spoke to a senior British diplomat who had run the relief operation in Turkey in 1991. “Both flatly denied there was anything near a clash and thought the charges of theft and tensions were sensationalised.” In a later account of the “clash”, Pope writes, Fisk “meticulously describes a flight to the refugee camp in the crew bay of an Apache helicopter. The trouble is, Apaches have no crew bay.”
When Pope’s book came out Ian Black, diplomatic editor of the Guardian, drily noted that he was “not the first journalist to wonder with envy and irritation how Fisk ‘managed to get an amazing sounding story from a dull day’”. Meanwhile the leading Egyptian blogger Issandr El Amrani noted that “if you hang around journalists with several decades of Middle East experience, particularly ones who were in Beirut in the 1980s, you keep hearing these stories again and again about Fisk”.
Indeed you do. “It has been common knowledge for years among British and American reporters that Bob can just make things up or lift others’ work without attribution and embellish it,” writes Jamie Dettmer, another former Middle East correspondent, in his review of Pope’s book. “I recall him doing it to me on a story in Kuwait about the killings of Palestinians at the hands of Kuwaitis following the liberation of the emirate. I remember also the time Fisk filed a datelined Cairo story about a riot there when he was in fact at the time in Cyprus.”
http://hurryupharry.org/2012/03/23/robert-fisk-makes-things-up/
= new reply since forum marked as read
"Private Eye is Britain's first, most successful and indeed only fortnightly satirical magazine. Founded in 1961, it has somehow managed to survive for half a century during which it has consistently entertained, informed and irritated its readers.
Over five turbulent decades it has developed its unique mix of jokes and journalism, comedy and campaigning, gags and gossip, laughter and libel, to cover the public life of the nation. From political plots to royal revelations, from City scandal to media manipulation, from legal lunacy to municipal madness. (That's enough alliteration – Ed)"
If "Harry" is using this satire as an attempt to discredit Fisk, he might want to rethink his
"source."
BHN
It is a SATIRE site.
It was NOT a serious article- it was intended as satire.
The site, Private Eye, is the UK version of ONN.
BHN
I have no knowledge of Pope and neither do I do know if Fisk has responded - he may simply have chosen to ignore it. There may be some elements of truth in there but overall I wouldn't dismiss Fisk as a result.
When you've time go here and check out Private Eye's covers since it first started back in 1961.
http://www.private-eye.co.uk/covers.php
Occasional references you see here to the Telegraph/Torygraph, Guardian / Grauniad , etc all originate from Private Eye. Misspelling of the Guardian's name came about from awful inability to proof read years ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Eye
Some years I posted the title of one of their old cartoons here and got into trouble as a result. All that actually achieved was Free Republic re-printing all of the chatter on the subject.
Go ahead- do a search.
2 results- DU and HurryupHarry.
None of the news sources cited have any links about it.
BHN
"Indeed you do. “It has been common knowledge for years among British and American reporters that Bob can just make things up or lift others’ work without attribution and embellish it,” writes Jamie Dettmer, another former Middle East correspondent, in his review of Pope’s book. “I recall him doing it to me on a story in Kuwait about the killings of Palestinians at the hands of Kuwaitis following the liberation of the emirate. I remember also the time Fisk filed a datelined Cairo story about a riot there when he was in fact at the time in Cyprus.”
http://www.potomacflacks.com/pf/2006/10/flack_profile_j_2.html
Unless this is another Jamie Dettmer, Middle East correspondent!
Check out some of my links on the background.
There will always be some who cling to something as truth,
even when provided evidence to the contrary.
Me?
I'm outta here!
See you on the "internets" highway Sabrina!
BHN