(by Suzanne Breen, News Letter)

Veteran war correspondent, Robert Fisk, was in town this week to deliver a lecture on journalism.

'September 11th: Ask who did it but for heaven's sake don't ask why' was the theme of his address to the West Belfast festival.

Fisk has spent 26 years covering the Middle East for the Independent and the Times. He has also covered our own conflict and that in Yugoslavia. He has been British International Journalist of the Year seven times.

His lecture focussed mainly on the Middle East but it should have made uncomfortable listening for any Northern Ireland media in the audience.

Journalists often decline to tell the truth in conflict situations because they want to avoid controversy and enjoy ''an easy life, unencumbered by hate mail and letters to the editor'', he said.

Instead of ''monitoring the centres of power'', which was their job, they penned stories that neatly fitted the dominant British/US line. Those who refused to play ball were demonised and even accused of supporting terrorism.

Fisk cited his own case. He had highlighted the civilian casualties caused by the US in Afghanistan. He had written about the tens of thousands of Iraqi children dying because of sanctions. He had pointed out that Osama bin Laden's terror bases were built by the CIA when he was their friend.

He had noted the West had no problem with Saddam Hussein, or his invasion of neighbouring countries (Iran), until he threatened Western interests by taking Kuwait. These journalistic stances had resulted in accusations that Fisk was ''in cahoots with terrorists'', supported bin Laden and was ''a total nutcase''.

Fisk railed against the media's repetition of Western propaganda as fact and how journalists often wouldn't even run stories if the US Defense Department wouldn't confirm them.

The death toll in Northern Ireland is much lower than that in the Middle East but how different is the media coverage of our conflict? Aren't there far too many journalists whose work revolves around being spoon-fed by the NIO?

What about those newspapers which, election after election, run highly erroneous opinion polls predicting gains for the UUP and the SDLP, and disaster for ''extremists''? What about the journalists who quiz the Rev Ian Paisley or Bernadette Sands with ten times the rigour they devote to David Trimble or Gerry Adams?

And if a journalist refuses to fit into the British government/pro-Agreement agenda, how are they viewed? If they persist in asking questions about the death of Billy Wright - or indeed Mark Fulton - in Maghaberry Jail, are they not in danger of being branded a fellow-traveller of the LVF.

Wouldn't it be a very risky career move for a journalist to even raise the possibility that British agents in the Real IRA deliberately messed up the Omagh bomb warnings and the authorities decided to let the bomb through to damage dissident republicanism and strengthen the peace process? Wouldn't the tongues wag that such a journalist was an apologist for terrorism?

Fisk talked about the hierarchy of victims in the Middle East with media coverage depending on who died and who killed them. Doesn't the same apply here? Doesn't the press, just like the government, play down ceasefire breaches when the victims are ordinary working-class people?

It's easy for us to nod in agreement with criticism of journalism in the Middle East. It's safe being a foreign revolutionary. But shouldn't we look at our own media and ask why we aren't posing awkward questions? Where, after all these years, are the Bob Fisks in Belfast?

This article appeared in the August 8, 2002 edition of the News Letter.

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