Here's how low Croz has sunk

There's a fine line sometimes between misinformation and disinformation, but the basic rule of thumb is that while the former could be mistaken, the latter is something you know to be false. It's the difference between making a mistake of fact and deliberately spreading a lie. "For this reason," according to the great arbiter of truth, Wikipedia, disinformation "is synonymous with and sometimes called black propaganda. It is an act of deception and false statements to convince someone of untruth."

Unlike traditional propaganda techniques designed to engage emotional support, disinformation is designed to manipulate the audience at the rational level by either discrediting conflicting information or supporting false conclusions. A common disinformation tactic is to mix some truth and observation with false conclusions and lies, or to reveal part of the truth while presenting it as the whole.

Which makes Crosbie Walsh of New Zealand a purveyor of black propaganda. The retired political science professor, who played a major role in the propaganda campaign that ran me out of Fiji last year, knew – or ought to have known – that information he posted on his blog today is false. Yet he posted it anyway, and judging by the last line of the post, it is obviously designed to influence his country's foreign policy toward Fiji. Some may be fooled, but I wish to cry foul. There are several problems with the blog post. First, he didn't write it, and he does not identify the author. Second, it was written two months ago and much muddy water has gurgled beneath the bridge since then. It is one of the worst pieces of media criticism I have ever read, but I was too tied up fighting other battles to get around to deconstructing it two months ago.

The blog post was authored on 30 January by Cameron "Whaleoil" Slater, a Kiwi blogger. It was enthusiastically reprinted by the regime cheerleader Fiji Sun the next day. For some reason, old Croz waited two months to reprise it. Perhaps he felt it might improve with time. Instead, time has had the opposite effect on it. Slater took Fairfax NZ reporter Michael Field, one of the top journalists covering the Pacific, to task for a couple of his stories on the regime's increasingly bizarre antics in January. The first mentioned what Slater called the "alleged" burning of copies of the Ghai draft constitution by Fiji Police, while the second was a scoop of some proportions about the ordered deportation of "troublesome" priest Father Kevin Barr. Slater didn't seem to see how Field could report accurately from Auckland on anything going on in Fiji.

Michael Field is banned from traveling to Fiji. It is likely that he sourced both of his stories from the anti-government blog Coup 4.5, who are almost all exclusively Auckland based. What is particularly galling is that the major media and gullible bloggers simply repeat what Michael Field and the anonymous bloggers at Coup 4.5 have to say. They invariably do not read more widely and find out the exact details of what precisely happened and when in Fiji.

This ignores the fact that Field's story actually quoted Father Barr from a telephone interview he managed to score with the harried priest in Suva, which was a bit of a journalistic coup (no pun intended) because of the sketchy information available at the time. "Our worst fears have eventuated," Father Barr told Field. "I am in an awkward position." So it is obviously not true that Field sourced his story through Coup 4.5. His source was instead the most solid possible – the subject of the story. Field may have first seen the story reported on Coup 4.5, but a good reporter would not rely on any blog as the source for a story. Instead he did what a good reporter should do. He tracked down the subject of the story and confirmed it with him first-hand. Field might be persona non grata in Fiji because of his critical reporting on the regime, but that doesn't mean he isn't able to get a story and get it right. But instead of a solid piece of journalism, according to Slater, this was “a manufactured story” by Field. And how did he know this? Because an anonymous source in the regime told him so.

The story concerned me and so I made a few calls. What I found out about the situation is in stark contrast with what was reported by Michael Field. My government contacts refused to comment on the record and their off the record comments were that this was a storm in a tea cup unhelpfully stirred up by journalists with agendas.

Of course, the deportation order against Father Barr was later rescinded, which raises the question of why Croz would reprint a piece of media criticism that is both so old and so lame. But wait, it gets better. . . er, worse. The other bee in Whale Boy’s bonnet was Field’s story on the regime’s repudiation of the Ghai Commission's draft constitution three weeks earlier, in which he mentioned that “after it was presented last month, police seized copies of it and burnt printer's proofs.” This is apparently exactly what happened, according to Ghai’s exclusive interview with Bruce Hill of Radio Australia, which cleared up much confusion about just what went up in flames, if anything. There were even photographs to illustrate the incineration, but according to Slater this was still an "alleged" burning. Apparently the offered documentation was insufficient for Whale Blubber, or whatever his handle is. You’ll never guess whose version he preferred.

With regards to the alleged burning of the new constitution you can’t really go past getting the true story from Graham Davis. . . . Compare and contrast the reporting from Michael Field and wonder how he manages to keep his job.

The words "true story" seem somehow out of place in a sentence that mentions Grubby Blogger. The fact that Slater would link to the hit job Davis did on Ghai, which was also based on one anonymous source, leads to the inevitable conclusion that they share the same Bizarro World definition of quality journalism. Of course, it was also reprinted the next day by the Fiji Sun, but we are not surprised that it would join in this brand of gutter attack. Whalegrease, whose subsequent bloggings on Fiji are as ill-informed and pro-regime as the one reprinted today, leaves little doubt that he is as deep in the junta’s pocket as Grubby and Croz.

The Economist deconstructs Frank's power play

Fiji's dictator might be able to keep the country's media from asking pesky questions about his recent manipulation of the constitutional process (such as, WTF?), but the international press is not so easily cowed. The esteemed UK magazine The Economist has weighed in on Frank's machinations and predicts that the country's "strongman" has already overplayed his hand.

Under the headline "Opportunity blown," The Economist predicts that Bainimarama has lost any hope of even claiming legitimacy for the process. The respected publication quips that "soldiers tend to be poor at handling their nation’s affairs, and so it has proved in the Pacific island state of Fiji." Frank's mistake was in ditching the opportunity for discussion of the draft constitution -- his draft, not the one proposed late last year by the Ghai Commission -- by his hand-picked Constituent Assembly. By not allowing even this measly level of public participation in the process, he cannot hold it up to international scrutiny without people holding their noses. After all, allowing the draft to go to the CA would have "empowered a popular body to deliberate on the affairs of the nation," notes The Economist. In Frank's Fiji this is simply not allowed. Fortunately, such strong-arm tactics do not come without peril, and Bainimarma, according to this analysis, has already bungled it.

By firmly reasserting his control, Mr Bainimarama may perhaps have avoided the risk of troublesome upstarts seizing control over the transition. But he has also blown his chance to preside over the creation of a new political order that is durable and legitimate.

The constitutional consultation process, according to The Economist, was such a success in attracting more than 7,000 submissions that even the RFMF emerged from it stoked about the country's potential under a democracy. The Yash Ghai-led Fiji Constitutional Commission accepted the regime's “non-negotiable” provisions, then demonstrated its independence by pointing out that many of the interim government's decrees, which limited rights the FCC planned to enshrine, would have to be ditched. For one brief, shining moment, Fiji had a chance.

Such was the euphoria around the process that the armed forces, in their own submission, said that the FCC had triggered “a sense of belonging culminating in a national pride” and a “togetherness which we must continue to foster”.

Under the expert-led constitutional consultations, observed The Economist, troubled Fiji "seemed to be enjoying a political renaissance." Then Frank went and blew it because his mile-wide authoritarian streak simply could not truck any semblance of democratic participation. That might mean, after all, someone being allowed to disagree with him and get away with it. Fijians must by now be asking themselves how much the future of their country has been endangered by relying on the wisdom and equanimity -- or lack thereof -- of one self-appointed leader.

Translating Grubbysplutter

Having invented a new word, I feel duty-bound to explicate it. Sorry, that's an academic word. Let's just talk about it for a while. The aim of propaganda is perception management. Walter Lippmann, a Progressive journalist who was co-opted into the U.S. propaganda effort during the Great War, later wrote the definitive . . .  er, explication of it in his 1922 classic book Public Opinion. He spoke of The World Outside and The Pictures in Our Heads. Propaganda was the attempt to alter the Pictures in Our Heads until they bore little relation to The World Outside. Censorship was central to this. Government news portrayed a preferred picture. Sometimes an underground press portrayed an alternate reality. In Fiji, blogs are the underground press. The freedom blogs certainly portray a different reality than presented by captive and government media. I am assured by freedom bloggers that Bainimarama would stand little chance in a fair election. Others claim he has widespread support. I actually have no idea which of these is closer to the truth. I would be interested to find out.

Meanwhile, I thought it would be interesting to dissect some actual propaganda, pin it up on the white board here and analyse it. Grubby's latest splutterings will do. Let's take it apart piece by piece and see what the reality might be.

GRUBBYSPLUTTER: There are increasing signs of desperation among the anti-government forces in Fiji
REALITY: Activity on the blogs has increased to not quite fever pitch as the regime nixes both the draft constitution and the Constituent Assembly that was supposed to rubber stamp it.  

GRUBBYSPLUTTER: as the country moves closer to the introduction of a brand of democracy that they are desperately trying to prevent – a non-racial model of one person, one vote, one value.
REALITY: I don't know about the other Freedomistas, but that's kind of what I had in mind, too. Why would I want to prevent this? Let's have the election, already.

GRUBBYSPLUTTER: That sense of desperation has reached fever pitch with the publication of the new Draft Constitution

REALITY: Bloggers have jumped all over Frank's draft and compared it with Yash's draft. Frank's would seem to be really a parody of democracy, with limited rights for Fijians. Do they get to vote on this?

GRUBBYSPLUTTER: that specifically stipulates an election in Fiji before the end of September 2014

REALITY: When does the campaign actually start?

GRUBBYSPLUTTER: and the declaration by Voreqe Bainimarama that he intends to contest the poll.

REALITY: We expected nothing else.

GRUBBYSPLUTTER: With precious little in the Draft to criticise,

REALITY: Here's the nutgraf, or what they call in propaganda The Big Lie. The criticism is heaping up in big piles. Frank may not be able to make this fly  

GRUBBYSPLUTTER: the old order in Fiji is in a state of collective meltdown

REALITY: I would instead liken it to awakening from a deep freeze

GRUBBYSPLUTTER: and actively seeking out small targets to kick.

REALITY: there are several people who could be getting kicked soon. Grubby might be one of them. I am safely in Canada.

GRUBBYSPLUTTER: How else to explain the accompanying cyber pamphlet currently being circulated on several anti-government blogs that specifically attacks Grubsheet and our connection with the American company, Qorvis Communications?

REALITY: I think the phrase, in the immortable words of George Dubya, is -- "Mission Accomplished"

And that's only the first paragraph. Any spelling misteaks in this, Grubby?

The power of words to the power of Boo

As soon as I finished laughing – which took a long time – I actually started to feel sorry for Grubby Davis. He took a ribbing from the Fiji Freedom Bloggers the other day and, like a petulant child, instinctively began lashing out in my direction. He has now been reduced to quibbling about spelling misteaks and has accused me – once again – of having skills well beyond my actual talents. Alas, I have only words to offer. Some scholarly analysis. Maybe a well-crafted jibe from time to time. Once in a while I'll throw in an outright insult. The power of pictures, on the other hand, takes the power of words to another level. That's where the Bubu comes in. The Discombobulated Bubu, to be exact. She is a Fijian of my acquaintance. More than that, I should not say. Since I relocated back to Canada, we communicate mostly by email. Where I think in terms of words, the Bubu thinks in terms of images.

Illustration by Edge

For example, when I posted my screed dissecting the Fiji Sun last week, the Bubu decided it needed some dressing up. I think you'll have to agree that the illustrations added a certain something. I first became aware of the Bubu late last year, at the height of the Davis-led smear campaign designed to rid Fiji of my media criticism and advocacy for press freedom. (Which has obviously worked out well for them.) The satirical letter writer Truncated Lounge began sending his hilarious Shazzer & Grubby missives to hundreds of Fijians by email in October. Bubu was the first blogger to reprint the fictitious love letters between Davis and MINFO chief Shazzer Smith-Johns the next month, adding some hilarious illustrations. This was a significant development for the Bubublog, which had been dormant for five months by then. Discombobulated Bubu was part of the first wave of Fiji freedom blogs which appeared in early 2007 to protest the clampdown on media freedom that followed the Bainimarama coup of late 2006. By sheer technological serendipity, the desire of stifled Fijians to speak out against the repressive regime was enabled by new online services, such as Blogger and Wordpress, which offered free hosting of personal "web logs," or blogs. Bubu's initial blog entries in March of 2007 were simple heartfelt protests against the police state that began enveloping Fiji, such as troops being stationed in newsrooms and government offices. Her outrage has been emblazoned across the top of her blogsite ever since.

Inspired by Intelligentsiya I am joining in Fiji's fight to retain our freedoms of choice in life - before we know it our freedoms will be taken away and what we take for being normal is really not. We must guard against this at all times and fight to retain what can never be suppressed! A government that knowingly and deliberately violates people’s rights loses the moral authority to demand obedience.

The first illustrations began appearing on her blog the following month and betrayed a wicked sense of humour. After more than five years of fighting, however, the Bubu blog fell into silence last year until being revitalised by the Shazzer & Grubby letters. She illustrates the hilarious letters with even more hilarious Photoshop work, usually giving everyone (except me) Big Hair. She also now reprints some of my blog posts and some news stories on Fiji politics, all of which get the inimitable Bubu illustrations. So far this month she is averaging almost a post a day, whereas until this year her entries have rarely numbered in the double digits a month. As part of this burst of energy, she also provides art for other Fiji freedom blogs, such as Coup 4.5, which ran her poster accusing Grubby of propaganda alongside a dandy depiction of Bainimarama's infamous cassava patch dash to escape his own mutinous troops in 2000. Needless to say, Grubby was unamused, actually accusing me of being behind the artwork.

Dr Edge posted this pamphlet on his widely unread blog site a full day before it was circulated on other anti-government blogs. We actually suspect that he may have been the author, given his uncorrected use of the word “traversty”. This guy is meant to be a journalist educator, or a journalist “scholar” as he so grandly describes himself. Yet clearly spelling is not his strong suit.

This echoed his accusation last November that I was Truncated Lounge, which may have actually put my safety at risk until regime types could be convinced that I had nowhere near the knowledge of Fijian politics required to write such biting satire. When that theory didn't fly, Grubby took me to task the next day just for forwarding the letters, which I could not deny. Now he thinks I'm an artist? And – let me get this straight – he points for proof of this to the fact that I can't spell? This is one of the worst applications yet of what I have come to call Grubby logic. Davis suffers from his usual shortage of facts and simply fills in the blanks with assumptions designed to suit his own purposes. Here's what actually happened. Bubu sent me the poster last week. I loved it and asked if I could post it on my blog. I pointed out that she had misspelled the word "travesty" and suggested she correct it while I posted the misspelled version. That's no doubt where Grubby spied it first. By the time it showed up on Coup 4.5 a few days later, I had received the corrected version from Bubu and posted it on my blog. Unfortunately, the version that was posted on Coup 4.5 was the original uncorrected version. That led Grubby to burst forth under the headline "Yet another 'traversty' of the truth." But wait, Grubby wasn't finished yet. He managed to wade even deeper into his own doodoo. After deleting a few nasty comments that I and others posted on his blog entry, Davis obviously went back to my blog to double check, only to find that the misspelling had been corrected. What he didn't realize was that the correction had been made long since. In Grubby's mind, it was only because he had pointed out the error.

Wouldn’t you know it? Within minutes of the publication of this posting, Marc Edge has changed “traversty” to travesty on his own posting. Which proves that he was the original author. . . . Pity you can’t change the version published here, which will stand as a testament to your ignorance.

So I obviously can't win with Grubby. From being an eagle-eyed editor who catches other people's errors, I have somehow – through Grubby logic – been rendered ignorant. But it's good to know that we are getting to him. He wouldn't be issuing such Grubbysplutter if we weren't. Bubu herself has now set the record straight, having been prevented from doing so on the Grubbyblog. "I alone traversed that poster," she admitted. "I have also sent that poster to every single Editor of every single major newspaper in the world, so they may may take a look at Grubby's claims of journalistic independence." I am sure that Grubby will emerge from this noisome misstep, as usual, smelling like a nose. At least in his own mind.

Most democracies allow limits to freedom

A commenter on the Fiji Today blog, where discussion actually ensues, points out that a clause in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms allows limitations on media freedom. It is brief, however, compared to the laundry list of limits allowed on media and other freedoms by the Draft Constitution of Fiji. Of course, journalists in all countries are subject to laws of the land, including, for example, court orders protecting the rights of accused persons to a fair trial. Section 1 of the Charter sets out that the rights listed in Section 2 are “subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.”

Guarantee of Rights and Freedoms

1. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.

Fundamental Freedoms

2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:

(a) freedom of conscience and religion;

(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;

(c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and

(d) freedom of association.

This puts the onus on the courts to decide, according to legal principles and precedent, what is or is not a reasonable and/or justified limit on any right. There has been no shortage of arguing about this in the courts of my country over the past 30 years. (I have sat through endless hours of it.) This is in sharp contrast to the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which states that “Congress shall make no law” limiting its listed freedoms. This has been interpreted by U.S. courts over the past 200 years or so to provide absolute protection of free expression, including hate speech, which has been limited in Canada. The Canadian Charter instead balances the rights of different groups in society, eg. of the press to report freely and of identifiable groups not to be subject to hatred, etc. In practice, most of the cases to result from limitations on free expression rights in Canada have involved Jews objecting to denial of the Holocaust. Some Americans find our laws against hate speech Frankly Ridiculous.

I have previously argued that Fiji has a perfect right to tailor its laws to its national needs without regard for regulatory trends in other countries. For example, in a fit of neoliberal enthusiasm, Australia recently removed restrictions on foreign ownership of media there. Fiji may decide that it instead doesn’t want foreigners (read a certain Australian) controlling its news media and may enact a regulation preventing that, as it did in the 2010 Media Decree. In Canada, we have been historically concerned about Americans controlling our media, but we didn’t want to pass a law that would be seen as restricting press freedom. Instead we passed a tax regulation that said only ads in Canadian-owned media would be deductible from income as a business expense, which has had the effect of discouraging – but not prohibiting – foreign ownership of Canadian media. Hypocritical? Maybe. Sneaky? Definitely.

Limitations on hate speech are certainly justifiable given Fiji’s fractious past and multi-cultural makeup. Such limitations would prevent much of the nastiness that has been seen previously in its media. Under the Draft Constitution, you literally could not say some of the things that have been said – and reported – in the past in Fiji. This is likely a good thing. Many would argue that the Draft Constitution goes too far in allowing limitations on press freedom. I would be one of them. The following allowable limitations are obviously designed to render the regime’s contentious Media Decree constitutional.

17.––(3) A law may limit, or may authorise the limitation of, the right to freedom of expression in the interests of––

(b) (ii) the rights of persons injured by inaccurate or offensive media reports to have a correction published on reasonable conditions established by law;

(h) making provisions for the enforcement of media standards and providing for the regulation, registration and conduct of media organisations.

The regime is intent on regulating media standards and conduct, which most democracies are loathe to do. It has done so under the 2010 Media Industry Development Decree, which sets out fines and even prison sentences for journalists who violate its nebulous provisions. Most media scholars, myself included, warn that this goes too far and unnecessarily restricts media freedom. Journalists will be deterred, if not prevented, from undertaking investigations which are an essential check on elected and non-elected power in a democracy. The Ghai Draft, of course, urged abolition or modification of numerous recent decrees enacted by the regime that would have been unconstitutional under its guaranteed freedoms. Its section on allowable limitations to guaranteed rights was actually very similar to that in the Canadian Charter. It provided that rights could be limited “only to the extent that the limitation is reasonable and justifiable in an open and democratic society based on human dignity, equality and freedom.” Rather than micromanaging rights and freedoms, as the regime attempts to do, this leaves the matter to the courts, which seems more reasonable.

Draft constitution giveth, then taketh away

Media freedom guarantees in the Draft Constitution of Fiji are identical to those in the version proposed by the Ghai commission. Then you get to the next section, which wasn't in the Ghai draft. It says the government of the day can pass laws limiting media freedom. In effect, with one hand the constitution gives Fijians a right, and with the other hand allows the government to take it away. The list of allowable reasons (read excuses) to limit media freedom is HALF AGAIN LONGER than the sections "guaranteeing" media freedom.

17.––(3) A law may limit, or may authorise the limitation of, the right to freedom of expression in the interests of––

(a) national security, public safety, public order, public morality, public health or the orderly conduct of elections;

(b) the protection or maintenance of the reputation, privacy, dignity, rights or freedoms of other persons, including––

(i) the right to be free from hate speech, whether directed against individuals or groups; and

(ii) the rights of persons injured by inaccurate or offensive media reports to have a correction published on reasonable conditions established by law;

(c) preventing the disclosure, as appropriate, of information received in confidence;

(d) preventing attacks on the dignity of individuals, groups of individuals or respected offices or institutions in a manner likely to promote ill will between ethnic or religious groups or the oppression of, or discrimination against, any person or group of persons;

(e) maintaining the authority and independence of the courts;

(f) imposing reasonable restrictions on the holders of public offices in order to secure their impartial and confidential service;

(g) regulating the technical administration of telecommunications; or

(h) making provisions for the enforcement of media standards and providing for the regulation, registration and conduct of media organisations.

This is exactly what the Ghai commission warned against in tabling its draft constitution in December. In order for its guarantees of media and other freedoms to have any meaning, the commission led by reknowned legal scholar Yash Ghai pointed out, several of the 241 decrees passed by the interim government would have to be repealed or modified. That would, of course, include the contentious 2010 Media Industry Development Decree. It has cast a deep chill over Fiji journalists by subjecting them to fines and even prison sentences for publishing or broadcasting anything deemed "against public interest or order, or national interest, or which offends against good taste or decency and creates communal discord." In a separate Explanatory Report, the Ghai commission insisted that  decrees inconsistent with its proposed constitutional rights would have to be repealed or amended, including the Media Decree, the Television Decree, and the State Proceedings Amendment Decree. In its version, the interim government instead explicitly sets out its right to impose such laws. In effect, it renders the stated "rights" meaningless.

The same sleight of hand is used in subsequent sections "guaranteeing" the rights of Freedom of Assembly, Association, Movement, and even Religion. The regime's Decree Spree has been limiting these rights for years, and the Bainimarama government isn't about to have all its hard work undone by any pesky Constitution. Its Public Emergency Regulation, which imposed martial law in 2009 and was only lifted last year, took away most of those rights. Even though the PER has been lifted, government decrees have since taken away such basic rights as Freedom of Assembly, as seen in the recent cancellation of the planned "Take Back the Night" march because it inconveniently coincided with release of the torture video. In effect, Fiji has been declared to be in a permanent state of emergency and rendered nothing less than a Police State.

Bubu strikes again