Pity the nation in inverted comas

Robert Fisk, the bestselling author and Middle East correspondent of the Independent, has lived in Beirut for three decades and holds more British and international journalism awards than any other foreign correspondent.

Among his less glittering accomplishments, however, the man who would verbosely “speak the truth to power” has allowed something of a cargo cult to be created around him here in New Zealand, where his first visit to these shores a couple of years ago was treated with the kind of rapturous media sycophancy that Dr Fisk has supposedly spent a professional lifetime cautioning against.

One thinks of Dr Fisk back in Beirut, perhaps, out on the balcony of his apartment overlooking the sea and enjoying a wine, and silently shaking his head in puzzlement as the cricketing cellphone announces another journalist calling him from New Zealand to do yet another breathless interview. All the more so, one supposes, since few, if any, of those late-night antipodean callers would understand that his bravest work has been in maintaining a consistently anti-Shia line in his political writing about Lebanon (especially against the Amal but also the Party of God) while remaining resident in a city where writing these things can very quickly get you killed.

More of the same sycophancy is on the cards again for early next month when the famous correspondent returns to this country for what almost certainly will be among the most ubiquitous media tours in local publishing history.

Media Watch has obtained a copy of Dr Fisk’s itinerary, helpfully put together by local publisher HarperCollins, which shows the guest already booked in with virtually every reporter in New Zealand this side of the gardening and water polo beats. The schedule will also take in half the country’s universities.

Among the confirmed sessions will be appearances at Auckland, Canterbury, Victoria and AUT Universities, meetings with Fairfax Media and APN editorial staff, television and radio spots without end and a no doubt reverentially attended public lecture chaired by Scoop’s Gordon Campbell (whose first exposure to Dr Fisk in book form happened to be your correspondent’s own copy of Dr Fisk’s swollen Lebanon study, Pity the Nation). And this is from the man who endlessly claims to have been snubbed by large swathes of the mainstream international press

Nor will the activity commence the moment the revered guest first steps off his flight from Dubai. A number of pre-recorded appearances have also already been scheduled, starting next week with a 20-minute interview with Radio New Zealand’s Kathryn Ryan.

Probably the most headline-grabbing interlude is set to take place on September 9, when Dr Fisk is booked to visit the Te Tirahou Marae in Glen Innes to meet with a number of the individuals nabbed in last year’s anti-terrorism raids.

The publisher has arranged for the defendants to be at the venue for “an opportunity to engage with the first people subject to the terrorism suppression laws in this country in a Maori context.” The timing is opportune, of course, and some would say mischievous, as the defendants’ depositions hearing begins in September and is expected to last for the entire month.

Still, no one will be able to accuse the visitor of poking an unwelcome nose into local legal affairs simply for the money. The asking price for his marae visit, according to HarperCollins, is no more than “a mattress,” should Beirut Bob wish to end his national tour by kipping over at the marae for the night. Pity the nation indeed.

The Ralston beat

“We make out of the quarrel with others rhetoric,” Yeats, walker of the roads of Ireland, wrote, “but of the quarrel with ourselves poetry.” Out of the conflict between two major media publishers, if one’s name happens to be Bill Ralston, you can also make a pretty lively beat as a media commentator.

The former news and current affairs chief at TVNZ now writes an online blog – a pretty good one, actually – for BusinessDay called Media- Scrum.

At the same time, Mr Ralston has also managed to create a presence for himself as a commentator with arch-rival media stable APN, for which he supplies weekly comment pieces for both the Listener and the Herald On Sunday.

Good luck to him, of course, but it does rather beg the question of how somebody can produce disinterested media criticism of a country’s two major publishers while also remaining dependent on both on a regular basis. Isn’t that like somebody trying to stand on a ladder while at the same time attempting to kick the same ladder out from underneath one’s feet

Shurely not

With the move by both major daily newspaper publishers to outsource or centralise their copy-editing operations, the wailing and gnashing of teeth over declining subbing standards has become the equivalent of polite small talk whenever two or more journalists gather.

Earlier this week, for instance, somebody with the excellent online forum Journz had a bit of sport drawing people’s attention to a recent (Fairfax) headline: Chine vs internet – who will win

Another recent favourite appeared in the Herald On Sunday, in which Foreign Minister Winston Peters was quoted from his joint press conference with US Secretary of State Condi Rice: “Putting things in inverted comas won’t save you from a defamation writ.”

As a Friend pointed out, “inverted coma” may well say a lot more than was intended about the current political scene – and the media who cover it.