Alexander Cockburn

From Philosopedia

Cockburn, Alexander (6 June 1941 - 21 July 2012)

Cockburn (pronounced co-burn) has described himself as a radical Irish journalist.

He was born in Scotland and grew up in Youghal, County Cork, Ireland. He is the eldest son Claud Cockburn, a socialist author and journalist. He has two younger brothers, Andrew and Patrick, both journalists.

Journalists Laura Flanders and Stephanie Flanders, and actress Olivia Wilde, are his nieces.

After studying at University of Oxford (Keble), Alexander worked in London as a reporter and commentator. After moving to the United States, Cockburn wrote extensively for numerous publications, including The New York Review of Books, Esquire, and Harper's.

Until 1983 he was a writer with The Village Voice, originating its long-standing "Press Clips" column, but he was suspended by the publication "for accepting a $10,000 grant from an Arab studies organization in 1982." He left the publication upon being offered a regular column in The Nation, called "Beat the Devil" (after the title of a novel by his father). He also has written columns for the Wall Street Journal, New York Press, and the New Statesman.

With Jeffrey St. Clair, he was co-editor of the newsletter and radical website CounterPunch.

Cockburn is an atheist, rationalist, and skeptic, outspoken about the corporate-friendly policies both of the Republican and Democratic political parties.

At the age of 71 while in Bad Salzhausen Germany, where he had been receiving medical treatment, he died of cancer. He was survived by a daughter, Daisy Cockburn; two brothers, the author Andrew Cockburn and Patrick Cockburn, a British journalist, as well as several nephews and nieces, including the actress Olivia Wilde, a daughter of Andrew Cockburn.

(See entry for Graham Greene.)

{CA}