Opinions on journalist Robert Fisk

[nightrider]

From Wikipedia: Robert Fisk (born 12 July 1946) is an English writer and journalist from Maidstone, Kent. He has been Middle East correspondent of The Independent for more than thirty years, primarily based in Beirut. Fisk holds more British and International Journalism awards than any other foreign correspondent. He has also been voted International Journalist of the Year seven times. He has published a number of books and reported on several wars and armed conflicts.

An Arabic speaker, he is one of a few Western journalists to have interviewed Osama bin Laden, which he did on three occasions between 1993 and 1997.

 

Recently he wrote an article titled “ Iran, not Syria, is the West's real target”

 

How do you rate him?

 

I used to think he was good, now I am dubious having read many allegations from fellow journalists that he makes a lot of his reporting up to support his viewpoint.

[blake]

he's the reason i stopped buying the independent many years ago - his articles on the middle east annoyed me too much - he may be an expert on the subject - far more than i will ever be - but i believed his entrenched views were more suited for comment pieces rather than front page "news" pieces

 

I kind of half agree with this but like I said in one of my previous replies once he'd had his deserved initial success as a reporter and also as an author with that book, which although it was good, was far too long - he just dropped his game. He was a good reporter Fisk and so good, that he will never stop ever being one completely. But he took his eye off his ball and he stopped being a reporter quite so much, and more like this op-ed pontificator just another cog in the Middle East conspiracy and fanciful predictions kaleidoscope. It was just hubris. Because Fisk does have a record as being a good reporter, his opinions can masquerade as news to the unwary.

[Manlinose]

Because Fisk does have a record as being a good reporter, his opinions can masquerade as news to the unwary.

 

that was the point i was trying to make

 

i know all news reports are affected by bias - either by that of the journalist or the editor - but the problem i had with Fisk's reports was that it became increasingly difficult to wade through and filter out the bias - i found i was reading other papers to get a more balanced view and just stopped buying the independent as a result

[Phanerothyme]

Wikipedia is just as prone to the achilles heel that all encyclopedias have always had - they can copy each others mistakes and while articles can be corrected in Wikipedia easily, they can also be un-corrected easily.

Indeed, but they can't be corrected in an encyclopedia at all. So you end up with things like this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Errors_in_the_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica_that_have_been_corrected_in_Wikipedia

 

I don't see a corresponding addendum to Colliers or Britannica!

 

What encyclopedias are good at, is when you want to find out the land area of Australia or something. Wiki is brilliant if you want to find out the ten largest countries in the world by area and population and so on, i.e. like all the kind of stuff you used to look up in encylopedias when you were a little kid. But when it becomes anything contentious and they are basically at sea.

Precisely the opposite. Wiki is a bit too detailed for younger children who will find http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page better.

 

Anything contentious will be the subject of expert debate on the discussion page behind the wiki articles. You can check out each contributor and their profile to see who is writing what.

 

If you want to find out the current thinking on any contentious theory or topic, wikipedia is an excellent place to start as a collection of references and jumping off points based around the topic.

 

I'm not saying that this happened in this case at all, but obviously for all we know, Fisk himself or one of his mates might have written the article. Seems Private Eye makes out that half of the senior staff at newspapers have if not written their own Wiki articles, then at least approved them.

Ultimately it doesn't matter who wrote them providing they are accurate and nPOV, but the authors of an article are not exactly kept a secret, as every contribution and amendmendment is logged in full. You can ignore information added by anonymous edits if you choose.

 

Just click the "edits" or "talk" tabs and see what parts of the article are contentious. If you want to see who is writing what (like when the CIA try and do mass edits) then you can do that too with wikiwatchdog.

 

The point is, not only is wikipedia all-encompassing, it is relatively transparent.

 

You can see every single contribution and edit to the robert fisk article, and of course it's fully referenced, allowing you to to corroborate the information for yourself.

 

I love Private Eye, and I like the Reg too, but their antipathy for Wikipedia runs beyond rational criticism and borders on pathological loathing. I can't offer any explanation why, other than, and I know it seems unlikely, they don't really understand wikipedia.

 

Wikipedia, like google, Wolfram Alpha or any other information tool, is useless and even dangerous in the hands of an idiot, but capable of wonders in the hands of an expert.

[tallcoolone]

well we cant all agree with this

[CPC464]

Excellent analysis - even if you don't agree with him, he's always worth reading for a different perspective.