Robert Fisk and the "independent" Independent

"This newspaper is pro-Israeli. We support the right of the state of Israel to exist, and sympathise with the Israeli people, who live in fear of terrorists who are intent on killing civilians indiscriminately. We share the frustration of the Israeli government: having withdrawn from Gaza and, longer ago, from southern Lebanon, terrorists are now using both territories to fire rockets into residential districts." The Independent - Leading article: The onus is on Mr Olmert, Published: 16 July 2006

There are no doubts whatsoever that the Independent "is pro-Israeli". Also there are no doubts that the Independent is pro-US and pro-UK.

On the same day, the "pro-Israeli" Independent published:

Robert Fisk: Hizbollah's response reveals months of planning

One wonders how many months [years and decades] of "planning" the Israel's "response reveals".

Independent Middle East correspondent's Robert Fisk is a great reporter, an excellent writer and a brave man. No doubts about that.

Still, he works for a "pro-Israeli" newspaper.

Media Lens reported this past January:

Robert Fisk, who is employed by the Independent, famously declared: "I don't work for Colin Powell, I work for a British newspaper called The Independent; if you read it, you'll find that we are." (Live From Iraq,' Democracy Now!, March 25, 2003)

(...)

Fisk commented in a recent interview with Canadian journalist Justin Podur:

“the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post version of events doesn't satisfy millions of people. So more and more people are trying to find a different and more accurate narrative of events in the Middle East. It is a tribute to their intelligence that instead of searching for blog-o-bots or whatever, they are looking to the European ‘mainstream’ newspapers like The Independent, the Guardian, The Financial Times.

“One of the reasons they read The Independent is that they can hear things they suspected to be the case, but published by a major paper. I'm not just running some internet site. This is a big operation with foreign correspondents. We are the British equivalent of what the Washington Post should be... So people in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, South Africa, the United States, Canada and many other places, are finding that a British journalist can write things they can't read elsewhere but which must have considerable basis in truth because otherwise it wouldn't appear in a major British paper.

“I'm not some cranky left wing or right wing nut. We are a newspaper, that's the point. That gives us an authority — most people are used to growing up with newspapers. The internet is a new thing, and it's also unreliable.” (Justin Podur, ‘Fisk: War is the total failure of the human spirit,’ December 5, 2005)

Robert Fisk On The British Media - Part 1

Robert Fisk On The British Media - Part 2

Independent?