Reporting from Around the World, Reese Erlich Was a Beacon of Independent Journalism

From Common Dreams

The longtime war correspondent, who died earlier this month, embodied the honesty and deep humanity that makes for the very best journalists.

When Reese Erlich died in early April, we lost a global reporter who led by example. During five decades as a progressive journalist, Reese created and traveled an independent path while avoiding the comfortable ruts dug by corporate media. When people in the United States read or heard his reporting from more than 50 countries, he offered windows on the world that were not tinted red-white-and-blue. Often, he illuminated grim consequences of U.S. foreign policy.

The first memorable conversation I had with Reese was somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean on the way to Iraq in September 2002 -- as it turned out, six months before the U.S. invasion. He was one of the few journalists covering a small delegation, including Congressman Nick Rahall and former Senator James Abourezk, which the Institute for Public Accuracy sponsored in an attempt to establish U.S.-Iraqi dialogue and avert the looming invasion.

Reese critiqued the basic flaws in U.S. media coverage then beating the war drums, and he also wrote about the "professional" atmosphere that led U.S. journalists to conform.

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