Tim Blair

Did you know saying Fisk lied is "highly libelous, it is slanderous and it is actionable"

Tom I want you to disassociate yourself from this!

Wow he nearly popped a vein there, too funny.

Posted by: Dash at April 25, 2004 at 12:02 AM

Y'know, I've seen young children behave better than when they were caught in the wrong. Fisk sounds like he needs more Prozac.

Posted by: JeffS at April 25, 2004 at 01:20 AM

Setting aside for the moment that truth is a defense to libel/slander, how can it be "libel" if the allegations are oral. Unless you guys have a different definition, libel is written. Fisk saying that the guys statement is "libelous" is another lie from Fisk.

Posted by: JohnO at April 25, 2004 at 01:59 AM

Wow he nearly popped a vein there, too funny.

It's hard to tell what with all the gin blossom.

Fisk sounds like he needs more Prozac.

Hey! Prozac AND gin together - it's a natural for crap lefty journalists. I'm calling Tanqueray and Eli Lilly on Monday morning.

Posted by: Craig Mc at April 25, 2004 at 02:36 AM

I pray for the day that repulsive lump of dogshit joins Walter Duranty and Joseph Goebels in the hell prepared for the willing mouthpieces murderers and tyrants.

If only those Afghanis had beaten him to death, if only that security contracter the self-righteous little shit harassed outside the hotel in Bahgdad had flipped and put two in his head.

But no such luck, Pat Tillman lies in his grave and that cocksucker Fisk will live to be a hundred and five. Get cancer, Fisk. Drive drunk, piss off some of your beloved swarthy locals, something, anything. Die you fuck.

Posted by: Amos at April 25, 2004 at 03:42 AM

He's wearing the same green jumper as the Tony Jones interview! Smelly hippie.

Obviously, as a "high flyer", he deserves his honorary doctorate from St Andrews University. Surely the blog world can stirr up something to at least make it VERY uncomfortable for St Andrews... surely...

Posted by: mb at April 25, 2004 at 05:00 AM

JohnO,

as far as I understand the situation, there is no legal distinction between "libel" and "slander" in Australia, and it is all under the broad umbrella of "defamation".

Furthermore, I believe that mere truth is NOT a defence, in the absence of "public interest" - however that may be determined!

Posted by: Kaboom at April 25, 2004 at 08:56 AM

Racist? A white guy accusing another white guy of blood libel is racist?

Posted by: mishu at April 25, 2004 at 11:08 PM

First of all, it's libel because it's broadcast. There's a permanent record. It's libel.

Secondly, Robert Fisk didn't spend 25 years in the Middle East, in that time becoming one of the most respected journalists in the world, for piss-ants like you to wish for him to die.

You are all liars, and the only reason you dislike Fisk is because he puts the lies that unthinking apologists like you lot propagate to justify your racist, elitist commentaries. You cunts.

Posted by: Jack at April 27, 2004 at 03:09 PM

Another thing you uneducated cretins are unable to understand is the term "blood libel".

Go to www.google.com. Search for that term, and then maybe, if you're brains can actually understand something that isn't part of a vicious hate campaign masquerading as legimitate commentary, you will understand where the "racism" bit comes in.

What a hateful, petty, nasty bunch of people you are. Only extreme right-wing Nazi racist baby-killer apologists would issue death threats against him. As has been done on this site.

You morons don't understand anything, Fisk has been far more critical of Arafat & the various Arab police states than he has ever been of Israel. Hate-mongers like you though, always fail to understand this, and "fisk" his articles for the slightest possible innaccuracy, because as you know damn well - many of his articles are written within hours, or sometimes minutes of the event, when information is often vague and unconfirmed.

You're the same type of cunts that ruined Noam Chomskys blog with your hate-filled comments and than accused him of stifling debate. What a fucking joke you lot are, get a fucking life.

Posted by: Jack at April 27, 2004 at 03:45 PM

And another thing, if a University decides to give him an award. Let them, it's nothing to do with you.

They're never ever going to give an award for a petty hate-filled blog. The same people tried to prevent Mary Robinson speaking at Emory.

These are fascist tactics. The same type of people broke up meetings in the 1930s. And went on to murder millions of Jews and Slavs. Shame.

Posted by: Jack at April 27, 2004 at 03:49 PM

As a long time but now former reader of the Independent I would take issue that Robert Fisk is respected journalist.

Maybe with the uncritical readers of that paper who regularly fill it's letter pages with adulatory praise for his articles.

However it does not take much critical insight to realise, whatever your politics or views on the Middle East, that Robert Fisk presents a deeply partial and one sided perspective on events.

Indeed he does criticise Arafat and Arab regimes and the terrorists that attacked the US. He rarely if ever develops these themes however, prefering instead to refer to them in passing before returning to his prefered stand point of blanket criticism of the US/Israel and other western governments that he holds responsible for the overwhelming majority of the world's and in particular the Middle East's problems.

His articles are formulaic and are full of self agrandizing references to his perceived importance in the events he is describing.

He champions the ordinary people he often writes about but in a way that many, myself included, would see as patronising. You may remember his article about how he was assaulted in Afghanistan in 2002 and way in which he exonerated those responsible for his assault implying that they could not be expected to know any better.

His moral code seems to work one way only.

However that said he does have a deep and long standing relationship with the Middle East. It is a shame that when you read his articles you realise that this knowlege is only really used to pump up his own belief in his importance.

As to the accuracy of his articles, it does not take much research to realise that he does regularly make mistakes and is extremely sensitive when these mistakes are highlighted.

If as Jack says this is because he files reports within hours or minutes of events taking place well then maybe he might want to reconsider his working practices?

I for one stopped reading the Independent because of Fisk, not because of his politics, indeed I share some of his views (but not many), but because his one sided reporting was being regularly elevated to the whole front page of that paper.

I wanted news not comment. His articles really tell you more about himself than they do about the events he covers and to me that is not good journalism. Inever felt I learnt anything new from his articles.

As to the posts above, I wouldn't wish him ill, he is entitled to his opinions, however to suggest that his critics are the same type of people that went onto murder Jews and Slavs in their millions is frankly ridculous.

Posted by: Cartman at April 29, 2004 at 04:13 PM