Fisking

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The term Fisking, or to Fisk, is blogosphere slang describing detailed point-by-point criticism that highlights errors, disputes the analysis of presented facts, or highlights other problems in a statement, article, or essay. ^[1]

Eric S. Raymond, in the Jargon File, defined the term as:

A point-by-point refutation of a blog entry or (especially) news story. A really stylish fisking is witty, logical, sarcastic and ruthlessly factual; flaming or handwaving is considered poor form. Named after Robert Fisk, a British journalist who was a frequent (and deserving) early target of such treatment.[1]

More broadly, the British newspaper The Observer defined fisking as "savaging an argument and scattering the tattered remnants to the four corners of the internet". [2] The technique also has its critics. Andrew Orlowski in The Register commented that "Many of today's debaters prefer "Fisking" - line-by-line rebuttals where facts are dropped like radar chaff - to rational debate or building a coherent argument." [3]

1 Origin
2 Comparisons and distinctions
3 Fisk's use of the Internet
4 Notes
5 External links

[edit] Origin

Though "Fisk" was originally used as a verb by Eoghan Harris in 1999, "fisking" in its current meaning was coined by bloggers in 2001. ^[2] Its origin followed a trenchant three-paragraph attack by Andrew Sullivan in response to an article written by Fisk in December 2001.[4] Though the term was not coined by Sullivan at that time, it appeared soon after on Instapundit and Sullivan's weblog .

Fisk's reporting style - openly mixing fact with analysis and criticism of Western government policy - has made him a figure of some controversy. Sullivan was responding to a dispatch by Fisk from Pakistan that recounted his beating at the hands of Afghan refugees:

They started by shaking hands. We said "Salaam aleikum" – peace be upon you – then the first pebbles flew past my face. A small boy tried to grab my bag. Then another. Then someone punched me in the back. Then young men broke my glasses, began smashing stones into my face and head. I couldn't see for the blood pouring down my forehead and swamping my eyes. And even then, I understood. I couldn't blame them for what they were doing. In fact, if I were the Afghan refugees of Kila Abdullah, close to the Afghan-Pakistan border, I would have done just the same to Robert Fisk. Or any other Westerner I could find.[5]

He related their anger over Western political and military activities in the region, such as arming certain Afghan and Islamic groups during the Soviet war in Afghanistan, leaving after the war, ignoring pleas for support during the civil war that followed, then bombing civilians during the 2001 war in Afghanistan.[6]

Sullivan responded to Fisk's piece in his blog, arguing that Fisk's sympathy for his assailants was pathologically relativistic and racist.

What it means is that someone – anyone – is either innocent or guilty purely by racial or cultural association. An average Westerner is to be taken as an emblem of an entire culture and treated as such. Any random Westerner will do. Individual notions of responsibility or morality are banished, as one group is labeled blameless and another irredeemably malign. There’s a word for this: it’s racism.[7]

Anyone who fisks can, in turn, be "counter-fisked." [8]

[edit] Comparisons and distinctions

Fisking can be compared to the Usenet style of responding to an argument's specific points by quoting lines prefixed with the ">" character (which contrasts with the style often found in e-mail of top-posting a reply all in one piece). The difference is that with a Usenet line-by-line discussion, a large number of tangential arguments often develop while the main point of the original article and original response gets lost.

Fisking is different from flaming, with which it is sometimes confused. Fisking is not merely verbal abuse, although it may contain a substantial amount of derision, scorn or even profanity.

Fisking is similar to the line-by-line method in policy debate, where one debater addresses each point of an argument in turn, as opposed to addressing the entire thesis of his or her opponent.

[edit] Fisk's use of the Internet

Toronto Star columnist Antonia Zerbisias interviewed Fisk in 2005. Fisk stated "I don't use the Internet. I've never seen a blog in my life. I don't even use email," and Zerbisias reported that she had to define the term "fisking" for Fisk.[9]

[edit] Notes

^ William Safire, Blargon, The New York Times, February 19, 2006.
^ Irish journalist Eoghan Harris had earlier used the term "fisking" with a different meaning; "To fisk is not to face the facts for as long as possible and, when found out, to divert the public from your mistake by spinning shiny stories in the air." (Sunday Times, June 13, 1999). No-one else appears to have used the term in this sense, and Harris later remarked that he had "lost a coinage". Eoghan Harris, Web man beat me to 'fisk' verb, The Sunday Independent, (Ireland), June 29 2003.