Alexander Cockburn (journalist)

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Alexander Cockburn (2007)

Alexander Claud Cockburn (pronunciation of the surname like "Co-burn", born June 6, 1941 in Scotland ; † July 21, 2012 in Nidda , Wetteraukreis , Hessen ) was an Irish journalist . He lived and worked in the USA since 1973 .

He was a co-author of the political newsletter CounterPunch . Cockburn also wrote the column Beat the Devil for the US magazine The Nation and a weekly column for the Los Angeles Times . He is also a regular contributor to the Anderson Valley Advertiser and the LewRockwell.com news and opinion blog . A frequent topic of his articles and non-fiction books were various aspects of US foreign policy , which he often criticized.

Life

Cockburn was born in Scotland and grew up in Youghal , County Cork , Ireland . He is the son of the well-known socialist author and journalist Claud Cockburn . After studying at Oxford , he worked as a reporter and commentator in London . After moving to the United States, he wrote numerous articles for the New York Review of Books , Esquire , Harper’s and others. By 1983 Cockburn was the author of the Press Clips column in The Village Voice ; however, that newspaper terminated his contract when it became known that the journalist had accepted $ 10,000 from the Institute of Arab Studies in advance of a book project on the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. He then wrote regularly for the Wall Street Journal , the New York Press, and the New Statesman .

Topics Cockburn often dealt with were the US foreign policy towards Central America in the 1980s, in particular the Iran-Contra affair , as well as the Second Gulf War in 1991, the Kosovo War in 1999, the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and the Iraq war 2003. He always reflected the influence of the US government on American media (for example in Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press , 1998). In terms of foreign policy, he also dealt with the Israeli conflict and the policy of the Israeli government towards the Palestinians. He was always interested in the movements and possibilities of political reforms in the USA.

His two brothers Andrew Cockburn and Patrick Cockburn are also journalists. His brother Andrew's daughter is the actress Olivia Wilde . Alexander Cockburn died of cancer in Germany in 2012.

From 1968 to 1973 he was married to the writer Emma Tennant and had a daughter with her (born 1969).

Works (selection)

  • Corruptions of Empire , 1988
  • The Fate of the Forest: Developers, Destroyers and Defenders of the Amazon , 1989, with Susanna Hecht
  • Washington Babylon , 1996, with Ken Silverstein, ISBN 1-85984-092-2
  • Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press , 1998, with Jeffrey St. Clair , ISBN 1-85984-139-2
  • Five Days That Shook The World: The Battle for Seattle and Beyond , 2000, with Jeffrey St. Clair, ISBN 1-85984-779-X
  • Al Gore: A User's Manual , 2000, with Jeffrey St. Clair, ISBN 1-85984-803-6
  • The Politics of Anti-Semitism , 2003, with Jeffrey St. Clair, ISBN 1-902593-77-4
  • Serpents in the Garden , 2004, with Jeffrey St. Clair, ISBN 1-902593-94-4
  • Imperial Crusades: Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yugoslavia , 2004, with Jeffrey St. Clair, ISBN 1-84467-506-8
  • Dime's Worth of Difference , 2004, edited with Jeffrey St. Clair, ISBN 1-904859-03-8
  • High Water Everywhere: New Orleans And the Shame of America , 2006, ISBN 1-84467-557-2

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b New York Times: Alexander Cockburn, Left-Wing Writer, Is Dead at 71 , July 21, 2012.
  2. ↑ Ottawa Citizen, Radical writer Alexander Cockburn, longtime columnist for The Nation, dead of cancer at 71  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. July 21, 2012@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.ottawacitizen.com  
personal data
SURNAME Cockburn, Alexander
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cockburn, Alexander Claud
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Irish journalist
DATE OF BIRTH June 6, 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH Scotland
DATE OF DEATH July 21, 2012
Place of death Nidda