What is Fairbanksing?
1.
A gratuitous fabrication in a story when the truth would have served just fine.
This style was made famous by Eve Fairbanks, Reporter/Researcher for The New Republic and opinion writer for The Examiner .
Examples: "Shooter told me he drives a hybrid car." from "Searching for Mr. Right" in The New Republic, 3 July 2006 (the "date" has a serious issue with his 1972 Muscle Car described as a hybrid); "Gossip hounds knocked on Sasha’s door in Queens . . ." from "Big Shame in a Small World" in The Examiner, 31 July 2006 (that did not appear in the article that Fairbanks was describing and added nothing to the story, however the author had been interviewed by a gossip columnist about her "Mr. Right story a few weeks prior); "Thanks to the Web site, Sasha’s brother, who is in the military, got in trouble with his superior officers." same publication (in the story Fairbanks was describing the brother got in trouble for threatening a civilian running a website, not because of anything on the website).
Original posting and definition is googleable on Fairbanksing GMontag.
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