Fit To Print: Misrepresenting The Middle East

WINNER OF THE 2007 NS PUBLIEKSPRIJS

'Luyendijk writes damn well and is a very honest journalist. Fit to Print is a very good book that examines the limitations of journalism, especially when it comes to the coverage of complex conflicts and regions. It sets out in clear and dramatic terms the key shortcoming of much reporting: the inability of journalists to express doubt and to admit that they don't know all that much, in many circumstances, about what is really happening in the countries they are covering. There is much in this book we should all be discussing and thinking about.'

Michael Gawenda, former editor of The Age, and director of Centre for Advanced Journalism, University of Melbourne

‘Written with great knowledge and humour. One hopes this will be read by everyone who has a fixed opinion or solution of the conflict in the Middle East. Rises high above the average correspondent book.’ Trouw

‘Luyendijk is a great observer, his style is flawless and fortunately he can laugh at himself, which makes this book all the more entertaining and attractive.’ HP/De Tijd

A young journalist’s foray down the rabbit hole of media-led reporting — a tale of disillusionment and self-examination set in the world’s most headline-grabbing regions.

In Fit to Print, a bestseller in Holland, Joris Luyendijk tells the story of his five years as a correspondent in the Middle East. Extremely young for a correspondent but fluent in Arabic, he speaks with stone throwers and terrorists, taxi drivers and professors, victims and aggressors, and community leaders and families. Chronicling first-hand experiences of dictatorship, occupation, terror, and war, his stories cast light on a number of major crises, from the Iraq War to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.

But the more Luyendijk witnesses, the less he understands, and he becomes increasingly aware of the yawning gap between what he sees on the ground and what is later reported in the media. As a correspondent, he is privy to a multitude of narratives with conflicting implications, and he sees over and over again that the media favours the stories that will be sure to confirm the popularly held, oversimplified beliefs of westerners.

In Fit to Print, Luyendijk deploys powerful examples, leavened with humor, to demonstrate the ways in which the media gives us a filtered and manipulated image of reality in the Middle East.