BOSTON — In honor of its 85th anniversary, the Armenian Mirror-Spectator will host a symposium titled “Journalism and Fake News: The Armenian Genocide and Karabakh” at Wellesley College on November 2, which is free and open to the public.
This panel discussion will begin with journalist Robert Fisk. Fisk is a British columnist and correspondent for The Independent and an outspoken proponent of the recognition of the Armenian Genocide. He has written on this topic often in The Independent and in his book, The Great War for Civilisation (2005). Fisk is a seven-time recipient of the British Press Awards’ International Journalist of the Year and a two-time winner of the British Press Awards’ Reporter of the Year. Based in Beirut, he has lived in the Middle East for more than 40 years.
A cross between a correspondent, writer, and historian, Fisk is able to report on the Middle East with deep historical context. He got his start in journalism at Lancaster University, where he wrote for the student magazine. He later received his PhD in political science from Trinity College in Dublin.
No stranger to covering conflict, Fisk started his career reporting in Northern Ireland in 1972 as a Belfast correspondent for The Times of London. Fisk then moved to the Middle East where he has lived and worked covering many of the wars there, including the Lebanese Civil War, the Gulf War, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Arab Spring, etc.
Fisk steps directly into the affected areas and speaks to those on the front lines. This deep connection with local communities has gained him credibility that far exceeds that of the average journalist who stops by for a brief visit to cover an issue.
As a self-proclaimed “Ottoman Correspondent,” Fisk has written often and forcefully about the Turkish government’s denial of the Armenian Genocide. In October 2016, Fisk published a moving article titled “A Beautiful Mosque and the Dark Period of the Armenian Genocide,” bringing to light the construction of a mosque in Gaziantep or Antep on the former site of the 19th-century Armenian Holy Mother of God Cathedral.
