Amy Ridenour’s newly redesigned National Centre for Public Policy Research blog (very stylish Amy; I like the gravitas suggested by yellowed book pages), features a great non sequiturial attack on the Independent for adding to its already exhaustive coverage of the climate change issue.
The best part of Amy’s outburst is her use of the newly coined word fisk, about which Wikipedia says this:
“The term Fisking, or to Fisk, is a rightwing blogosphere term describing criticism that highlights perceived errors or other problems in a statement, article, or essay. It should be noted that these “errors” do not necessarily refer to factual inaccuracies, but more often to perceived inaccuracies in the analysis of presented facts.
“Indeed, “Fisking” may appear, to those who do not share the viewpoint of the fisker, to be merely taking small parts of an article out of context and putting the worst possible interpretation on them, without regard to the connections between individual points.”
If that’s not enough, both Ridenour’s post and the whole Wikipedia article are worth a look. Wiki, especially, explores the etymology of fisk, paying appropriate homage to the journalist Robert Fisk, whose award-winning reporting originally earned the wrath the Ridenour’s fellow travellers.
