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Believe Nothing until It Is Officially Denied:Claud Cockburn and the Invention of Guerrilla Journalism
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The Extraordinary Life of a Revolutionary Journalist
Radical journalist Claud Cockburn fought successfully against the political and media establishment, writing for publications as varied as The Times and Private Eye. To Graham Greene, he was the greatest journalist of the twentieth century.
Born in China in 1904 and educated alongside Evelyn Waugh, Cockburn launched into a stellar career as a Times correspondent, first in Berlin, then New York, interviewing Al Capone in Chicago, and finally Washington. He resigned in 1932 to start The Week, an anti-Nazi and anti-establishment newsletter with an influence out of all proportion to its circulation. British officials were horrified by the scoops he published. These included stories on the political influence of German appeasers – the Cliveden Set – in the British elite and the previously suppressed news of Edward VIII’s abdication.
Cockburn wrote dispatches while fighting in the Spanish Civil War. In Spain, he helped W. H. Auden and clashed with George Orwell. Claud’s private life, too, was eventful. He was married three times, once to Jean Ross, the model for Christopher Isherwood’s Sally Bowles.
Patrick Cockburn, himself an international journalist, chronicles his father Claud’s lifelong dedication to a guerrilla campaign against the powerful on behalf of the powerless. It is a biography for today’s age, in which journalism is frequently suppressed, overshadowed, undervalued, and corrupted
Reviews
The life of Claud Cockburn ... [is] deftly narrated by his son, the exceptional and award-winning foreign correspondent Patrick Cockburn ... Cockburn senior was a hero to my generation of would-be journalists. He was the living bridge between the political storms of the 1930s and the early satire-boom of Private Eye in the 1960s.
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The story of Claud Cockburn and the Week, the deadly little newsletter he set up in 1933, shows that power is not always deaf to truth.
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Deft ... Claud was an imperfect man, but his intensities and animations, and his habit of independent thought, make him well worth meeting here.
, New York Times Book Review -
Described by Graham Greene as the greatest journalist of the 20th century and attacked by senator Joseph McCarthy as “one of the most dangerous ‘reds’ in the world” ... the remarkable life of Claud Cockburn ... is being told by his son, Patrick, in a book which hails him as the inventor of “guerrilla journalism”.
, Observer -
Patrick Cockburn has produced a fascinating book about his father's life, with some excellent insights relevant to journalism today. A great read for all but a compulsory text for any aspiring journalists out there.
, Irish Post -
Cockburn’s life was a scurrilous, subversive but dedicated pursuit of the truth (well, mostly) in defiance of authority, while also having a great deal of fun ... He is in many ways one of the great models of what a journalist should be – curious, nonconformist, sceptical and dogged.
, Daily Mail -
A fascinating book about his father’s life, with some excellent insights relevant to journalism today. A great read for all but a compulsory text for any aspiring journalists out there.
, Morning Star -
Remarkable ... a fascinating and subtle portrait of a paradoxical career.
, Spectator -
Quite simply, the best Western journalist at work in Iraq today
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A fine and courageous journalist
, Sunday Times -
one of the best informed on-the-ground journalists
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Cockburn’s colorful, elegantly written account extols Claud’s charisma, courage, and daring....[Cockburn] succeeds in capturing Claud’s verve and staunch political principles.
Publishers Weekly -
Claud Cockburn was one of the great journalists of the 20th century, an irreverent anti-careerist, steeped in the politics of Central Europe, happiest courting risk ... Patrick [Cockburn] has now written an excellent account of him, supplying much new or buried information
, Conservative Home -
A timely intervention
, Guardian -
Claud is shown as complicated and stubborn while also being a wholly magnetic figure who was dogged in both holding his beliefs and finding the central truth. A ruminative biography that firmly situates the power of independent, on-the-ground journalism.
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Few reporters have put entire ruling classes on notice the way Cockburn did as editor of The Week.
, Baffler -
A rattling-good read ... provides a new summing-up of [Claud Cockburn's] brilliant and manic press career and his role in the invention of "guerrilla journalism"
, Irish Times -
Vividly recounts an extraordinary life which can still inspire writers today ... Patrick Cockburn’s deeply researched book into his father’s early life presents to us a complex and attractive figure whose attitude and methods can still teach us something about what journalism can and should be.
, Catholic Herald