Robert Knight
Robert Knight, a self-described distant visitor to a strange planet who produced and hosted Earthwatch, a free-form radio program at WBAI, has died.
Robert Knight worked as an on-air correspondent for Comedy Central’s “Daily Show,” Pacifica’s nationally-syndicated “Flashpoints,” “Informed Dissent,” INN’s International News Net, and the Public News Service, where his reports have been heard on hundreds of stations. He recently produced a two-hour historical documentary, “The Sweet Science of Racism in Haiti,” a post-earthquake public affairs special.
Along with Dennis Bernstein, Knight was a cofounder of the groundbreaking investigative news series “Contragate/Undercurrents”, which provided daily exposes of the clandestine and military and drug operations during the contra wars in Central America. He has also served as WBAI’s News Director, “Wakeup Call” morning host, and as a fundraising copywriter. His work has been heard on Pacifica National News, Free Speech Radio News, National Public Radio, KPFA, WABC, WAMC, WEVD, WLIB, WMCA, and WNYC, and elsewhere.
As an international correspondent, Knight traveled to five continents, reporting from such hot spots as Nicaragua (he covered de contra war), Colombia (where he reported on the international drug complex), Libya (where he visited the home of Muammar Khadafy), North and South Korea (where he covered nuclear and reunification issues), and Panama (where with Manuel Noriega and coverage of the 1989 US invasion earned him the prestigious George R. Polk Award.
Other awards include the Jesse Meriton White Award for International Report, the Ethical Culture “Man of the Year” Peace Award, the Madre Padre Award (presented to a few good men by MADRE, the international feminist human rights organization), the Humanist Journalism Award (presented by the Rev. Joseph Ben-David, a colleague of Hannah Arendt), the News Reporting Award presented by Asian-Americans for Equality, and the National Association of Black Journalists’ Radio Reporting Award for his documentary series on covert activities in apartheid South Africa.
Knight’s domestic work includes travels to Tulia, Texas, where he covered the false arrests of most of the town’s African American population on fabricated drug charges, and to Albany, New York, where his reporting contributed to reform the draconian Rockefeller Drug Laws.
Knight also made numerous television appearances, including “Like It Is”, with Gil Noble and “Tony Brown’s Journal”, and news anchoring on “International News Net”. He also hosted a televised town hall discussion with the Rev Al Sharpton at the Schomberg Center for Research into African Culture.
His writing has been published in Esquire, Essence, New York Magazine, SPY, SPIN, Newsday, the New York Daily News, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, The Guardian, and the Premier Edition of Civil Rights journal, published by the U.S. Commission Civil Right among others.