Wednesday 9 July 2008

Seeing the world through non-American eyes


I have recently finished a book I should have read long ago. Fisk is controversial, not much loved by the American Jewish lobby, but a respected and long standing Middle East correspondent of first The Times (of London) and then The Independent.
He has lots to say about how western media has covered the Israel/Palestine conflict, and the wider Middle East story.
He also has lots to say (mostly bad, some good) about how the NYT has covered the Middle East.
Whether one agrees with him or not (and I largely do) this book should be given to every NYT employee joining the IHT, because it gets inside the difference of perspective that one has when one is looking at international news from Manhattan, Paris or Beirut. The same stories look remarkably different.
Give me some time and I'll post more on this book, and in particular what it has to say about the NYT, but in the meantime, if you happen to be one of those NYT editors in Manhattan, or coming to Paris, read this book.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Fisk is a powerful messenger of non-embedded journalism--all too rare in this corporate media dominated world. Shouldn't respectable news organizations only allow journalists to report from a region after having lived there long enough to really understand it?

Here's audio of Fisk's lecture on journalism I recently attended in Rome (MP3).
PART I: http://www.internazionale.it/pagine/journalism/media/mp3/fisk_part_1.mp3
PART II: http://www.internazionale.it/pagine/journalism/media/mp3/fisk_part_2.mp3

(Source: Internazionale.it)