Con Coughlin
Con Coughlin(born 14 January 1955) is a British journalist and author, currentlyThe Daily Telegraphdefence editor.
Con Coughlin | |
|---|---|
| Born | 14 January 1955 London,England |
| Nationality | British |
| Education | Christ's Hospital |
| Alma mater | Brasenose College, Oxford |
| Occupation(s) | Journalist, author |
| Employer | The Daily Telegraph |
Early life
[edit]Coughlin was born in 1955 inLondon,England. He read Modern History atBrasenose College, Oxford,[1]where he specialised in theIndustrial Revolutionunder the tutelage of the historianSimon Schama.
Journalistic career
[edit]
In August 1977 Coughlin joined the Thomson Regional Newspapers graduate trainee course and after undertaking his initial training in Cardiff served out his indentures as a trainee reporter with theReading Evening Post.In November 1980 Coughlin joinedThe Daily Telegraphas a general news reporter. Coughlin has spent most of his journalistic career working for what is now the Telegraph Media Group.
As a young reporter for his newspaper, he was initially given responsibility for covering a number of major crime stories, such as the arrest ofPeter Sutcliffe(dubbed the Yorkshire Ripper) and the Brixton riots.[2]
Becoming a foreign correspondent, his first big assignment was to cover theAmerican invasion of Grenadain late 1983. From there he was sent to Beirut during theLebanese civil warwhere he developed his interest in the Middle East and international terrorism. After the Telegraph group was bought in 1985 by the Canadian businessmanConrad Black,Coughlin was appointedThe Daily Telegraph's Middle East correspondent byMax Hastings,the newspaper's new editor.
Coughlin opened the newspaper's bureau inJerusalem,and spent the next three years covering a multitude of stories throughout the region. In April 1986 he narrowly escaped being kidnapped byHezbollahfighters in Beirut,[citation needed]the day before another British journalistJohn McCarthywas kidnapped. In March 2009 Coughlin recalled this experience inMy Alter Ego,a programme forBBC Radio 4.[3]In 1989 Coughlin returned to London, where he transferred toThe Sunday Telegraphand was appointed the newspaper's chief foreign correspondent. During the next few years he received several promotions, becoming Foreign Editor in 1997 and Executive Editor in 1999. The following yearThe Sunday Telegraphwon the prestigious "newspaper of the year" award at theBritish Press Awards.[4]
He has appeared as a foreign-affairs analyst on the American networksCNN,Fox News,CBS,ABCandMSNBCandNBC.In Britain he broadcasts regularly for theBBCandSky News.
In 2006 Coughlin rejoinedThe Daily Telegraphas the newspaper's defence and security editor after a brief spell writing for theDaily Mail,and later that year was promoted to the post of executive foreign editor. He writes a weekly column, "Inside Abroad", and comments on a broad range of subjects, with a special interest in defence and security issues, the Middle East and international terrorism. He maintains a blog for theTelegraph's website.[5]
Author
[edit]Coughlin is the author of several books. His first book wasHostage: The Complete Story of the Lebanon Captives(Little, Brown 1992), which was followed by a study of the politics of modern Jerusalem,A Golden Basin Full of Scorpionswhich was BBC correspondentJohn Simpson's "book of the year" and was described as "excellent, a brilliant book" by the authorA. N. Wilson.[citation needed]
In 2002 Coughlin published a biography ofSaddam Hussein.The American edition,Saddam: King of Terror(ECCO) was aNew York Timesbest-seller in 2003, and received international critical acclaim.[6]
His next book,American Ally: Tony Blair and the War on Terror(ECCO, 2006) was nominated Kirkus Reviews books of the year. In 2009 Coughlin publishedKhomeini's Ghost(Macmillan, London, and ECCO, New York City) a study of the life ofAyatollah Khomeiniand his impact on the radicalisation of the Islamic world during the previous thirty years. HistorianDominic Sandbrook,reviewingKhomeini's GhostinThe Observer,wrote: "Readers already familiar with recent Iranian history will not discover much new information in Coughlin's account, but it nevertheless makes a very readable and entertaining introduction to a nation badly misunderstood in the west. And while Coughlin makes no secret of his deep antipathy to the Iranian government, his treatment of its founder is satisfyingly nuanced".[7]Iranian-American journalist Azadeh Moaveni, in a review forThe New York Times,asserted that the book contained factual errors and misrepresentations of facts, the author having documents out of context to bolster his argument.[8]
In January 2014Thomas Dunne Bookspublished Coughlin's book onChurchill's First War: Young Winston at War with the Afghans.
In addition Coughlin has regularly written for several other publications includingThe Spectator,[9]The Wall Street JournalandThe Atlantic Monthly.
Gaddafi legal case
[edit]Telegraph Newspapers apologised for a libel againstSaif al-Islam Gaddafiin April 2002.[10]The Sunday Telegraphhad published an article by Coughlin in November 1995, then the newspaper's chief foreign correspondent (and a piece for the newspaper's Mandrake column, published during the following month, which quoted Coughlin)[11]alleging that Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was involved in a massive criminal operation with Iranian officials that involved counterfeit notes and money laundering in Europe based on information received by British intelligence and banking officials.[12]The Sunday Telegraphwas served with alibelwrit by Saif al-Islam Gaddafi. The original story followed a lunch given byMalcolm Rifkind,then Foreign Secretary, at which editorCharles Mooreand colleagues were present, and later briefings given to Coughlin by MI6 agents who had insisted on the preservation of their anonymity.[12][13]
After a hearing at the Court of Appeal in October 1998, it was established that the journalists had a right to bring the story before the public under theQualified privilege,under theReynold's Defencerules established by an earlier case, Reynolds v Times Newspapers Ltd the previous July.[11][14]
The main court case followed in 2002, which was defended by the Telegraph Group and was eventually settled out of court without any damages being paid, and with both sides agreeing to pay their own costs. In 2002Geoffrey RobertsonQC made a statement on behalf of theTelegraph Groupstating "there was no truth in the allegation thatSaif al-Islam Gaddafiparticipated in any currency sting ".[15]
Habbush letter
[edit]In late 2003, in a front-page exclusive story, Coughlin revealed a leaked intelligence memorandum, purportedly uncovered by Iraq's interim government, which detailed a meeting betweenMohamed Atta,one of the 11 September hijackers, and Iraqi intelligence at the time of Saddam Hussein.[16][17]The memo was supposedly written by Iraqi security chief GeneralTahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikritito the president of Iraq. The report was subsequently challenged with American officials also reiterating that there was no such link.[18]
The Daily Telegraph's report was repeated by several conservative columnists in the United States, includingDeroy Murdock[19]andWilliam Safire.[20]
Turkey
[edit]Coughlin alleged that theTurkish Prime Minister,Recep Tayyip Erdoğan,has negotiated a deal with Iran for Tehran to make a $25 million contribution to the campaign funds of Turkey's ruling party.[21]
Immediately after the publication of the article, Turkish Government rebutted all allegations and asked the newspaper to remove Coughlin's article from its website.Justice and Development Partyalso demanded an apology for publishing what it called an article without any sources but with many lies in it.
The Daily Telegraphlost the libel lawsuit[22]Erdoğan filed in UK. As a result, he won "a substantial sum" in libel damages and an apology was published by the newspaper.
Views
[edit] |
On civil liberties of terrorist suspects
[edit]In April 2009, Coughlin wrote an article entitled "My advice to Obama: Don't pick a fight withDick Cheney",which was published on theTelegraph's website. In the article, which followed claims that US forces hadwaterboardedanAl Qaedasuspect 183 times, Coughlin argued that: "There are always two sides to a story, even a deeply unpleasant one such as waterboarding an al-Qaeda suspect", before asking "what if, as Mr Cheney is now suggesting, these brutal interrogation methods actually produced information that saved lives by thwarting potential al-Qaeda attacks?". Coughlin suggested that the problem posed "an interesting ethical dilemma", namely: "Are interrogation methods like waterboarding justified if they save lives, or should we respect the detainees' human rights, thereby enabling the terror attacks to take place and claim innocent lives? I know which option I'd go for".[23]Coughlin has continued to write articles supporting the use of torture, for example on 10 February 2010 "When the next bomb goes off in London, blame the judges".[24]
On China
[edit]In March 2020, Couglin wrote a column inThe Daily Telegraphaccusing theChinese Communist Party(CCP) of being a corrupt elite that has no interest in protecting the interests of its citizens, nor those of the world beyond, and that it does to want to be held accountable for its role in handling theCOVID-19 pandemic.[25]
In April 2020, he wrote in another column suggesting readers should treat China like a hostile state due to what he referred to as a lack of transparency and cooperation in its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and accused China of launching a disinformation campaign seeking to portray itself as a victim and clear itself of responsibility for the global health crisis.[26]
References
[edit]- ^Michaelmas Term 1974.Complete Alphabetical List of the Resident Members of the University of Oxford.Oxford University Press.1974. p. 24.
- ^"1981: Brixton riots report blames racial tension".On This Day.BBC News. 25 November 1981.
- ^"George Augustus Sala".My Alter Ego.BBC Radio 4. 4 March 2009.Retrieved27 June2012.
- ^"British Press Awards: Past winners - Press Gazette".Archived fromthe originalon 22 February 2012.Retrieved25 January2009.
- ^"Con Coughlin".The Daily Telegraph.London. Archived fromthe originalon 18 August 2009.Retrieved30 April2010.
- ^Tawa, Renee (3 April 2003)."WAR WITH IRAQ / THE MEDIA; Now, Biographer's Life Is All About Hussein's".Archived fromthe originalon 16 July 2012.
- ^Dominic Sandbrook"As powerful in death as in life",The Observer,15 February 2009, retrieved 12 May 2009.
- ^Azadeh Moaveni"Most Fundamentalist","New York Times", 7 May 2009
- ^Search page,Spectator website
- ^"Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi: an apology",telegraph.co.uk, 21 April 2002
- ^ab"Gaddafi v Telegraph Group Ltd [1998] EWCA Civ 1626 (28 October 1998)", Judgemental
- ^abHollingsworth, Mark (30 March 2000)."The Hidden Hand".The Guardian.London.Retrieved17 June2007.
- ^Vikram Dodd"Profiles: Saif Gadafy vs Con Coughlin",The Guardian,19 April 2002
- ^David HooperReputations Under Fire,London: Little, Brown, 2000, p.341
- ^"Paper apologises to Gaddafi's son".BBC.18 April 2002.Retrieved17 June2007.
- ^Coughlin, Con.Terrorist behind September 11 strike was trained by SaddamThe Daily Telegraph.13 December 2003
- ^Coughlin, Con.Does this link Saddam to 9/11?The Daily Telegraph.13 December 2003
- ^Isikoff, Michael; Mark Hosenball."Dubious Link Between Atta and Saddam".MSNBC.Archived fromthe originalon 26 June 2007.Retrieved17 June2007.
- ^Murdock, Deroy.On the Interrogation ListArchived17 June 2010 at theWayback MachineNational Review.15 December 2003
- ^Safire, William.From the 'Spider Hole'The New York Times.15 December 2003
- ^Con Coughlin (14 September 2010)."Iran donates $25 million to Turkey's ruling party".The Daily Telegraph.Retrieved14 September2010.
- ^Erdogan wins damages for Iran claim
- ^Con Coughlin, "My advice to Obama: Don't pick a fight with Dick Cheney" Daily Telegraph blogs, April 21, 2009
- ^Con Coughlin, "When the next bomb goes off in London, blame the judges" Daily Telegraph blogs, February 10, 2010/
- ^Coughlin, Con (25 March 2020)."China cannot escape the blame for 'Wuhan flu'".The Telegraph.Retrieved17 May2020.
- ^Coughlin, Con (1 April 2020)."Coronavirus means that we must now treat China like a hostile state".The Telegraph.Retrieved17 May2020.
