 one of the pioneering exceptions was Bob Parry and when I first got to know Bob not very well in the beginning I got to know Bob much better only because we were living on different sides of the Atlantic. When I began to write for him and I enjoyed that very much as I enjoyed writing for you Joe but writing for Bob it was almost like writing it was like writing for newspaper again it was fun and it you know there was a to and fro and there was an understanding of what the words were about. The man was a real journalist you know it comes often with old-fashioned journalists but not old-fashioned it was a real journalist although so many fake journalists now and they've been for always been fake journalists of course let's let's not demonize a younger generation please. John you uh you've described journalism today as vishi journalism yes just explain that and what roles there's a website like consortium news and other alternative sites have to come as a remedy for this if if it is vishi journalism as as my little insult for those who are those who are the echoes or as they're often called the stenographers of governments and during the vishi years in France there were plenty of them they misreported the war they lied about uh what the Germans were doing they collaborated collaboration is probably the keyword if not collusion and when you look at the assange case there's been so much collaboration and collusion I was reading a report by the excellent fair organization about its headline farcical coverage of Julian Assange's farcical hearing there you have collaboration that's vishi journalism it's it's uh it I mean if journalism is anything you are an agent of people not power you can be all those things you can be I'm not sure you can be entirely impartial I don't agree with all that but I think you can do everything you possibly can to find out the truth as much as you can and do it honestly and do it in good faith these people don't the bbc reporter came to the old baylee during during the julien assange trial and uh when he was asked well what are you doing you're coming back tomorrow and he said no it's repetitive this is this is the major broadcaster in this country and he described what has rightly been called the trial of the century as repetitive and they didn't come back and every day this extraordinary as you know joe consortium news is uh it's one of the few to have reported it live to given to provided that public service to people wanting to know about the trial of the century but you wouldn't know looking at the so-called mainstream having said that I do think it's it's a waste of breath to keep on and on about the mainstream they are part of the problem I grew up in the mainstream I've reported in the mainstream all my career has been in the mainstream and unfortunately that's what it has taught me we've come to a point where that perhaps bob parry came to 25 years ago where there wasn't a space for him there wasn't a space for an honest reporter without fear or favor reporter uh when I started here in fleet street as they used to call the british press yes of course it was owned by all these moguls and it was conservative but there were spaces and they allowed in mavericks in fact mavericks brought them distinction awards and prizes and scoops that's gone that's gone completely um and and that's why bob setting up consortium news was so important and that bob um family diane and that and sam and kept him helped keep him going um and why going back the story of garry web there's such a a chilling uh important story for all of us to understand because basically what bob was writing about was yes a ron contra but it was cocaine contra and that was web story it was cocaine the story was of course the cia was shoving cocaine into the united states it was a huge story and when web was vindicated by the cia's inspector general which only as far as i know only bob reported and made sense of and wrote about and kept an eye on and as diana suggested went through the documents you know whereas the press at the time reported a a cia press release which was meant to be which was of course meant to be a decoy because the real story was buried in the actual report the inspector general's report that vindicated web vindicated everything that bob uh had done on that particular story um so i think we should celebrate bob parry and and celebrate those who aspire to be the bob bob parry's but we should never think that there is a there is a nice columbia school of journalism media out there just waiting for um clean cut nice people honest journalists to arrive and get their jobs uh when i spoke with cy hersh and bob fisk at columbia a few years ago i felt an absolute atmosphere of hostility and that's particularly to fisk and me uh we were going too far we were going much too far bob parry went too far i salute him