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Comments: "Colin Powell will be booed at an international conference

"...those who persist in seeing the US as the globe’s greatest malefactor will rant themselves into corners."

Lilek singles out Fisk, Pilger and Monbiot. All journalists, but the latter two are also professional polemicists who often have America in their sights. Robert Fisk is a first-rate news journalist specialising in middle east affairs. His eyewitness reporting may make uncomfortable reading for American audiences but if Lilek thinks he's one of the "small angry voices for small angry people", then he is an idiot.

Posted by steve walters on September 12, 2002 04:38 PM

"Fisking" is now an established form of abuse...

"Now, his [Robert Fisk] output is so routinely debunked by Yankee bloggers that "Fisking" has become a word used to describe any incidence of an online writer picking apart a particularly asinine column." Matt Welch

http://www.nationalpost.com/search/story.html?f=/stories/20020608/493354.html

Posted by David Steven on September 12, 2002 04:58 PM

I couldn't get that link to work David.

Here's another that worked for me.

http://www.mattwelch.com/FreelanceSave/Chomsky.htm

Here's a fisk article.

http://www.arabnews.com/Article.asp?ID=16364

It seems odd to call Fisk a 'first-rate news journalist' rather than a polemicist.

In addition to 'fisking' there are the variants 'group-fisking' and 'self-fisking'. Fisk is the most widely reported self-fisker.

Posted by back40 on September 12, 2002 06:02 PM

"It seems odd to call Fisk a 'first-rate news journalist' rather than a polemicist"

Well, you can be both, of course. But I've always thought of Fisk, first and foremost, as a news reporter whereas Pilger and Monbiot are better known as columnists who write controversial opinion pieces (which I read and usually disagree with). I may not always agree with every interpretation that Fisk puts on events he's reporting but I do think the reaction to his work you get from the US is way over the top. And I think it is just lazy to lump these journalists together like that.

Posted by steve walters on September 12, 2002 08:03 PM

John Pilger, Polemicist? Possibly - I agree with him half the time, and disagree the other half. However, was his narration of the Pol Pot's regime in Cambodia opinion or reporting? (As just one example).

Posted by Geraldine on September 13, 2002 08:01 PM

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