What is Fisking?

I've had several people ask me recently what the word "fisking" means, as I use it often. I had only a vague conception of it myself, as a thorough refutation of a blog entry or article, but lo and behold I came across a good definition::

fisking: n.
[blogosphere; very common] 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.

So there you have it. I found that definition, ironically, by following a link from folkbum, who was linking to my fisking of Brian Cherry's pathetic pro-ID article. Folkbum was kind enough to say, "If you've ever wanted to see a good fisking, check out what Ed Brayton does to a dim wingnut at Dispatches from the Culture Wars" in regards to the Cherry article. So I not only got to find out what the official definition was, but I got to find out some people think I'm pretty good at it. Then again, Cherry's article could have been fisked thoroughly by an average 12 year old with any reading comprehension ability, so it's probably not a fair test of my powers.

More like this

Named after Robert Fisk, a British journalist who was a frequent (and deserving) early target of such treatment.

That etymology sort of taints it though, doesn't it? Given that the people "fisking" Fisk were the sort of intellectually-dishonest, ideologically-driven, demon-haunted neocon nimrods people on this site are generally appalled by? (I'll leave decoding the psychosexual overtones of the pun aside, given recent MP behavior in Iraq and Limbaugh's response to it ...)

That etymology sort of taints it though, doesn't it? Given that the people "fisking" Fisk were the sort of intellectually-dishonest, ideologically-driven, demon-haunted neocon nimrods people on this site are generally appalled by? (I'll leave decoding the psychosexual overtones of the pun aside, given recent MP behavior in Iraq and Limbaugh's response to it ...)

Doesn't taint it in my book, since I haven't the foggiest idea who Robert Fisk is or what sort of people attacked him. It still seems like a perfectly good word and to stop using it because of such concerns would strike me as akin to not eating deviled eggs to avoid association with Satan (not that I'd attempt to do so in the first place).

Here's a different version of the definition, from the Volokh Conspiracy back in '02 (from the google cache, blogspot is behaving profoundly weirdly at the moment):

The term refers to Robert Fisk, a journalist who wrote some rather foolish anti-war stuff, and who in particular wrote a story in which he (1) recounted how he was beaten by some anti-American Afghan refugees, and (2) thought they were morally right for doing so. Hence many pro-war blogs -- most famously, InstaPundit -- often use the term "Fisking" figuratively to mean a thorough and forceful verbal beating of an anti-war, possibly anti-American, commentator who has richly earned this figurative beating through his words. Good Fisking tends to be (or at least aim to be) quite logical, and often quotes the other article in detail, interspersing criticisms with the original article's text.