Robert Fisk in The Progressive

Robert Fisk, the Middle East correspondent for The Independent, is interviewed by Alternative Radio's David Barsamian in the June issue of The Progressive. Fisk's reporting has earned him a good deal of controversy, especially in the United States, because of his refusal to accept the platitudes of the U.S. and British governments. In this interview he's asked about various aspects of his almost 30 years of reporting in the Middle East. As Barsamian notes, "In an era of drive-by journalism, where reporters turn up in places only when there is a major crisis, Fisk is a throwback to an earlier period when journalists would stay in a country for many years and learn the language and customs and develop and mine contacts." His perspective, which is always fascinating, is largely missing from Western reporting on the Mid-East generally, and Iraq in particular.

Unfortunately Fisk says little about the British press in this interview, though he does comment on the U.S. mainstream media in a couple of places. For example, on Seymour Hersh:

Fisk: Seymour Hersh, with the possible exception of John Burns [of The New York Times, though he is in fact English], is about the only American journalist doing his job in Iraq. He doesn't have to go there, but by God, we're learning what's happening from him. The banalities in the American mainstream press are certainly not worth reading. We do not fully understand, for example, that there are 20,000 to 30,000 armed mercenaries from South Africa, Ireland, Britain, and America. They are a law unto themselves. They shoot, they kill, and they don't care. There is no law, no justice, nothing.

When asked about these "security contractors," Fisk rejects the term. "They're hired armed men," he retorts. "I call them mercenaries. I don't call them security contractors. I leave that to The New York Times and The Washinton Post". That sideswipe at America's two leading agenda-setting newspapers is another insight into what Fisk thinks of the U.S. media generally. (He could have mentioned that British media also often refer to them as "security contractors" or "private contractors"; perhaps his sense is that British coverage is more critical of the role of these individuals.) Anyway, it's a compelling view of what the crisis in the MIddle East is all abouut, and well worth a read.

(BTW, if you want some more background about Fisk from a few years ago, here's another interview transcript, also from The Progressive, from July 1998. This interview gives you a better idea of the stature of the man, and what makes him tick, without all the baggage of Iraq.)