Happy Holidays from Consortium News. Become a member of the first U.S. independent news site on the Web, founded by legendary investigative journalist Bob Parry 30 years ago in 1995.
Robert Parry
To show your support for Consortium News and help it survive and expand its reach please join our membership program today to celebrate our 30th anniversary.
Members who contribute $250 will receive a set of four books written by our outstanding founding editor, the late Bob Parry, while supplies last!
Fooling America: How Washington Insiders Twist the Truth and Manufacture the Conventional Wisdom;
Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & ‘Project Truth’
Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush
America’s Stolen Narrative: From Washington and Madison to Nixon, Reagan and the Bushes to Obama
If you donate $300 or more you will receive Bob’s four books plus a link to view his groundbreaking documentary for PBS Frontline Investigating the October Surprise.
A donation of $200 will land you American Dispatches: A Parry Reader.
All contributions are tax-deductible.
Questions? Contact info@consortiumnews.com
Please Donate to CN’s 30th Anniversary Winter Fund Drive 
Clip it or leave as is . No need to leave the comments blank .
AI Overview
The following is an insightful ode to the investigative journalist Robert Parry, from the imagined “third-eye perspective” of a pencil used throughout his career.
————
An Ode to Robert Parry: The Pencil’s Third Eye
I was born a tall, proud sapling, then milled to a yellow pencil, long and new, a mile long it seemed in my youth, with potential for stories yet untold. My life’s purpose began when his hand, Robert Parry’s hand, first gripped me.
From my earliest days, I was his silent witness, his third eye on the world, a conduit for thoughts that burned within his mind. I transcribed a life of dedication to truth, starting with the intense, groundbreaking work on the Iran-Contra affair for the Associated Press.
I remember the relentless scribbling as he uncovered Oliver North’s secret network in the White House basement. My lead wore down to a stub, sharpened again and again, with each shaving falling like the layers of government secrecy he peeled away. I felt the weight of the stories about the Contra cocaine trafficking in the U.S. that powerful people wished to suppress, the words flowing from his mind, through his hand, onto the paper, stark and undeniable.
We moved from the fast-paced newsrooms of the AP and Newsweek to the independent realm of Consortiumnews, a pioneer in online investigative journalism, where he could write without the constraints of corporate interests. There, my eraser-less stub saw countless hours of meticulous research, challenging conventional wisdom and official narratives. The words I helped form were those of principle, often swimming against the tide of mainstream media consensus, especially in later years with the controversies surrounding “Russiagate” and the Ukraine conflict.
The gap between mind and paper, once vast, narrowed to the tip of my lead. I became a part of him, an extension of his unwavering belief that “journalism at its best” was a moral imperative. When his health failed and he could no longer hold me, the thoughts remained, a legacy of a reporter’s reporter who was determined to keep the public honestly informed.
I am just a worn-down stub now, but the words I bore are etched in history, a testament to Robert Parry’s legacy of independent, courageous journalism, a story of mind and pencil, bound by the pursuit of truth.
Truly yours , your pencil