Media

Modern Life Rubbish – Robert Fisk

Have you ever wondered whether Robert Fisk minds his surname being used as a verb?

The answer is contained in this question and answer session at the Council on Foreign Relations:

Let me take a question from the back, perhaps. The gentleman over there in the back.

QUESTIONER: Gary Rosen from Commentary magazine. Mr. Fisk, you’ve achieved a degree of immortality in the blogisphere, where these online commentators the verb “to fisk” now means to take a piece of journalism and to respond to it point-by-point for its ideological biases and factual unreliability. I’m wondering, do you — do you take pride in this coinage? Does it fill you with indignation? What are your thoughts on it? Is it justified?

FISK: I don’t waste my time with blogs, I don’t use the Internet, and I don’t use e-mail. I work.

Thank you. (Laughter.)

Fisk yesterday.jpg

via Tim Blair