Robert Fisk, author and journalist, and based in Beirut for some 30 years now, is well known - and either revered or reviled.
The Guardian unplugs the man:
"Robert Fisk is one of the most famous journalists in the world, and one of the most divisive. Many revere him both for the muscular quality of his reporting - in a world numbed by 24/7 television, he makes news seem gripping and important and full of pity - and for his refusal to shy away from saying that which few other writers dare to put down on the page. No one escapes the heat of his ire: neither Bush nor Blair, neither Israel nor the Arab dictatorships. For him, journalism is about 'naming the guilty' and sod the consequences. In his more than 30 years as a Middle East correspondent - during which time he has survived bombs, bullets, two kidnap attempts and, perhaps most notoriously, a thorough beating at the hands of a group of Afghan refugees in Pakistan - he has won more awards than any other foreign news journalist and has written two bestselling and acclaimed books: Pity the Nation, a devastating history of the Lebanese civil war, and The Great War for Civilisation, a 1,300 page history, with eyewitness accounts lifted directly from his own notebooks, of the 'conquest' of the Middle East (his latest book, The Age of the Warrior, a collection of his journalism, has just been published). Fisk's lectures sell out across the world; at his book signings, the queue extends out of the door.
For others, though, Fisk is a hate figure, especially since 9/11, when he outraged many by asking what had motivated those who were responsible for the attacks. As a result, he received extensive hate mail. 'My father thinks he's the Antichrist,' said a friend of mine when I told her that I was going to meet him. His enemies accuse Fisk of being 'biased'; he is anti-west and anti-Israel, they argue. Usually they stop short of calling him anti-semitic, though this does happen sometimes. Alan Dershowitz, the liberal Harvard law professor, has called Fisk 'pro-terrorist' and 'anti-American', which, he added at the time, 'is the same as anti-semitic'. (Fisk's approach to this sort of thing is robust: anyone who makes this accusation in print can expect to hear from his lawyer.) His enemies also accuse him of getting his facts wrong. In 2001, the word 'Fisking' passed into the language, meaning a point-by-point refutation of a news story. The term was named after Fisk because he is such a frequent and, his enemies would say, deserving target of this kind of treatment."
The Guardian unplugs the man:
"Robert Fisk is one of the most famous journalists in the world, and one of the most divisive. Many revere him both for the muscular quality of his reporting - in a world numbed by 24/7 television, he makes news seem gripping and important and full of pity - and for his refusal to shy away from saying that which few other writers dare to put down on the page. No one escapes the heat of his ire: neither Bush nor Blair, neither Israel nor the Arab dictatorships. For him, journalism is about 'naming the guilty' and sod the consequences. In his more than 30 years as a Middle East correspondent - during which time he has survived bombs, bullets, two kidnap attempts and, perhaps most notoriously, a thorough beating at the hands of a group of Afghan refugees in Pakistan - he has won more awards than any other foreign news journalist and has written two bestselling and acclaimed books: Pity the Nation, a devastating history of the Lebanese civil war, and The Great War for Civilisation, a 1,300 page history, with eyewitness accounts lifted directly from his own notebooks, of the 'conquest' of the Middle East (his latest book, The Age of the Warrior, a collection of his journalism, has just been published). Fisk's lectures sell out across the world; at his book signings, the queue extends out of the door.
For others, though, Fisk is a hate figure, especially since 9/11, when he outraged many by asking what had motivated those who were responsible for the attacks. As a result, he received extensive hate mail. 'My father thinks he's the Antichrist,' said a friend of mine when I told her that I was going to meet him. His enemies accuse Fisk of being 'biased'; he is anti-west and anti-Israel, they argue. Usually they stop short of calling him anti-semitic, though this does happen sometimes. Alan Dershowitz, the liberal Harvard law professor, has called Fisk 'pro-terrorist' and 'anti-American', which, he added at the time, 'is the same as anti-semitic'. (Fisk's approach to this sort of thing is robust: anyone who makes this accusation in print can expect to hear from his lawyer.) His enemies also accuse him of getting his facts wrong. In 2001, the word 'Fisking' passed into the language, meaning a point-by-point refutation of a news story. The term was named after Fisk because he is such a frequent and, his enemies would say, deserving target of this kind of treatment."
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