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Showing Original Post only (View all)Robert Parry: A still valuable investigative journalist or a liar & conspiracy theorist? [View all]
I had always thought Robert Parry was a rather admirable figure. There's the October Surprise, the Iran-Contra work, the willingness to back Gary Webb when so many of the best journalists kept their silence and cashed their paychecks, and the nonstop reporting on the spectacularly criminal George W. Bush administration. Is that admiration misplaced? No longer seen as the award-winning investigative journalist of the past by some who visit the internet, Parry is now openly called a liar and a conspiracy theorist by those disenchanted with his reporting.
First, a review of what Parry has done:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Parry_%28journalist%29
Robert Parry (born June 24, 1949) is an American investigative journalist best known for his role in covering the Iran-Contra affair for the Associated Press (AP) and Newsweek, including breaking the Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare (CIA manual provided to the Nicaraguan contras) and the CIA and Contras cocaine trafficking in the US scandal in 1985. He was awarded the George Polk Award for National Reporting in 1984. He has been the editor of Consortium News since 1995.
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In August 1990 PBS' Frontline asked Parry to work on the October Surprise conspiracy theory, leading to Parry making several documentaries for the program, broadcast in 1991 and 1992. He continued to pursue it after a Congressional investigation had concluded the story was untrue, turning his Frontline research into a book published in 1993, and in 1994 he unearthed "a treasure-trove of government documents" supporting the theory, "showing that the task force suppressed incriminating CIA testimony and excluded evidence of big-money links between wealthy Republicans and Carter's Iranian intermediary, Cyrus Hashemi". In 1996 Salon.com wrote about his work on the theory, saying that "his continuing quest to unearth the facts of the alleged October Surprise has made him persona non grata among those who worship at the altar of conventional wisdom."
When journalist Gary Webb published his newspaper series Dark Alliance in 1996 alleging that the Reagan administration had allowed the Contras to smuggle cocaine into the US to make money for their efforts, Parry supported Webb amidst heavy criticism from the media.
If DU postings are any indicator, Parry was seen as someone with a pretty reliable insight into reality during the not too distant Bush II years. His work was posted on a regular basis.
All in all, Parry has built a resume that screams a willingness to speak the truth regardless of the cost in dollars or popular acclaim. What's happened? Why are those so opposed to Parry so opposed? Has his reporting on Ukraine and the threats of a new Cold War been so off base as to reveal a once praiseworthy journalist as nothing more than a propaganda spewing puppet? Is the US Empire now such a good actor that investigative journalists like Parry are left with no real crimes and controversies to report and must resort to simply making things up? I don't see it, but that's just me. Maybe those opposed to his work could enlighten those of us who still embrace it. Is it Money? Sex? Power? What is it that would make a champion of progressive reporting abandon his principles?
