CARIBBEAN NEWS NOW COMMITS SLOW SUICIDE

WAS THAT STORY ‘PLANTED’ IN CARIBBEAN NEWS NOW? NO? SO WHY DID IT SOUND SO MUCH MORE LIKE A SPEECH BY RICHARD’S LAWYER THAN A PIECE OF CREDIBLE JOURNALISM?



What goes up must come down. But which side will the coin fall on? (Pictured: Richard Frederick with his mirror image, former business partner and political rival Stanley Felix.)



 

In a September 26 editorial, Caribbean News Now admitted that basically, their story exonerating Richard Frederick from all his past and future sins was necessarily one-sided. But it’s not their fault. The other side didn’t talk so they got screwed. Never mind that Caribbean News Now expressed no skepticism over any of the ‘facts’ presented in the article. They just presented everything as fact and almost fact.

I can identify with that. People who shut up when it’s time to communicate are likely to get screwed in the short-to-mid term. It’s their own damned fault. But that first story on September 26, entitled US ACTION AGAINST ST LUCIA MAY BECONNECTED TO VISA REVOKATION, sounded like such a sell-out hack job that Caribbean News Now essentially destroyed what was left of their integrity in St Lucia. It came only a few weeks after they went and told everyone that the Police Commissioner was about to be sent on leave – a move anyone who is following that issue knows is just so far out of the realm of possibility that it was unbelievable from the first read. With the two stories related and one of them proven to be categorically unfactual (by the way, Louis Lewis, that is still not a real word), how are we supposed to just drink the second one like Jim Jones’ Kool Aid?

 

Nice imagery, but I'm still not drinking that!

How does Caribbean News Now manage to continue to destroy its own reputation like this? Is that its business model? How does Caribbean News Now manage to defend that story as acceptable journalism?

With great audacity, that’s how. The audacity of dope. (Or should that be the audacity of dupe.)

Never mind that apart from having no sources and no attributions, the story had no one who was willing to take responsibility for it.

The September 25 story, which the editorial was based on, was sure to be hot. It got more than ten times the number of hits as other related stories. You mean to tell me no writer wants to take credit for such a hot story? Then again, given the high standards of journalistic professionalism at Caribbean New Snow, who would want to?

(I mean, what is this? The FLOGG Blog? Grow up. They’re purporting to be serious journalism over there. They deliberately named their thing Caribbean News Now so that it would be seen as the CNN of regional online journalism.)

Vernon Francois: Secretly wishing he really was on vacation.

(P.S. You won't see him smiling again very soon. It was just an accident. A momentary slip.)

But only a few weeks after jumping the gun on the ‘vacation’ of the sitting Police Commissioner, they’re doing Richard Frederick’s public relations, publishing stories and editorials that smell like they were written by Frederick’s own hand. In a related story! Makes you wonder if the sources aren’t related as well. And by related, I mean exactly the fucking same. Makes you wonder what goes on in the editorial room of Caribbean News Now. Makes you if they studied journalism at the Joe Digenova School of Defending Richard Frederick.

(Thank God, we all know that The FLOGG Blog ain’t no fucking journalism and will never pretend to be such. If The FLOGG’s information gathering methodology retains any journalistic integrity, it is only because The FLOGG’s editor was properly brainwashed by the great St Lucian writer Kendel Hippolyte and the most excellent Barbadian communications professor Susan Harewood. The FLOGG makes every effort to make sure all that bullshit is overwhelmed by gratuitous profanity and off-center observations about things so far back in history they can legitimately be claimed to have nothing to do with what the subject at hand is. That’s right. If it is any kind of journalism, The FLOGG Blog is the Vybz Kartel of journalism. Ol’ Devil journalism.

Vybz Kartel doing his best impression of Jason Sifflet.

 

(I told him to take off the jewelry but he wouldn't listen.

If he did no one would even be able to tell that wasn't me.)

But it’s not. The FLOGG is not news or art or entertainment. It is the National Middle Finger of the Caribbean.)

HOW CNNow’s SUICIDE PACT STARTED

In the very first paragraph of the September 25 story, ‘informed sources’ say that the US actions against St Lucia ‘COULD BE’ connected to Frederick’s 2010 visa revocation. Informed sources said it ‘could be’?….how informed were these sources if they could only manage a ‘could be’. (Could be that Kenny Anthony is the Devil. Could be Allen Chastanet is Jesus Christ. Could be that Richard Frederick is a…no, no, that’s different, because that’s true. He is.)

I’m tempted to bet these informed sources are none other than Richard Frederick’s conspiracy theory loving lawyer, but, like a certain cornered politician/lawyer, I’m don’t have any money to spare. But if I had $100, I might put it down on being able to find drafts of the script of the story on Frederick and/or Digenova’s computers, pre-publication. Digenova does looks like the kind of person who might speak of himself in the third person, doesn’t he? And we all know Frederick…he even thinks of himself in the third person.

“It is now believed that Frederick’s visa was revoked as a result of false information supplied by members of the SLP…” the September 25 story went on.

It is now believed…by whom? By informed sources? By Richard Frederick’s lawyer? Nooooo! (Insert sarcastic sneer here.)

Of course he believes that. I would tell you what else he believes. But as the Nebuchadnezzar of the St Lucian media would say, “That’s for another show.”

It looks like CNNow staff have kicked off his next election campaign.

Or they are refighting his last one. Hard to tell, sometimes. Either way the net effect is that they are promoting Frederick, these days.

Then, Caribbean News Now starts campaigning for Frederick even though there’s no election: “Frederick’s…personal political popularity remained undiminished…” though his visa revocation played a part in his party’s general election loss. Wow. What an exigent political analysis. Never mind that the 2011 election was the closest Frederick ever came to losing in three successive elections. Never mind that he spent more money per vote than any other candidate in the history of St Lucian politics, perhaps more than any in the history of English speaking Caribbean.

But Caribbean News Now has declared him to be as popular as ever.

Then, they connect the US sanctions against Lucian cops to Frederick’s visa revocation saying basically, that the US is lashing out at Labour for lying to them about Frederick.

Now…on a point of order…or whatever the Rotarians call it:

As far as the US State Department is concerned, the pressure they’re putting on St Lucia is about the extra-judicial killings of 2009/10. That has always been their story and they are sticking to it. No one ever accused Frederick of having anything to do with that. So….

Now that's going overboard a bit, don't you think?

Unless he’s confessing to having something to do with the deaths of Baj and the rest of the gangsta soldiers who got whacked by the cops in that period….What dafuq is he talking about?

Of course, this is also the same guy who threatened to sue The FLOGG over a fictitious story about a drug dealer who became a political shot caller. It’s like he wants to people to think the worst about him by denying their accusations before they have actually made any. Poor jab. It’s a wonder he gets any sleep at night, given what he thinks everybody really thinks of him.

As for Caribbean News Now editors, one has to wonder if they have some kind of learning disability that prevents them from reading stories before they publish them, as is.

 

RICHARD FREDERICK’S PUBLIC RELATIONS POSSE

Actual photograph of Richard Frederick riding around Castries in a luxury vehicle back circa 2006-2010. Frederick was so high and mighty that even photographs of him had a soundtrack.

 

Timothy Poleon did not just innocently read the Caribbean News Now September 25 ‘news’ story on the air in its entirety. He put himself at risk of looking like part of Richard Frederick’s public relations machine.

That story stunk from the very beginning.

Which is why the Media Association of St Lucia can’t just come out and outright support him. Which, in turn, is why the efforts to paint Tim’s troubles into a full scale Government War on the Media just won’t work.

The CNNow September 25 story observes that the US has given no reasons for why they revoked Frederick’s visa while allowing two Labour ministers with ‘a known history of violent sexual assault’ to gallivant across America as they pleased. Ha! As though the US would share information with Frederick’s lawyer that they wouldn’t share WITH THE GOVERNMENT OF ST LUCIA. Lmao!

“Inquiries with US law enforcement sources have produced no evidence against Frederick….” As though US law enforcement was in any mood for co-operating with Frederick on anything. As though ‘inquiries’ with ‘sources’ would DEFINITELY have produced evidence if there was any evidence to produce.

Basically, those sentences say absolutely nothing of substance, while implying, inferring and allegating a lot of stuff. (Yes, I know allegating is not a word, but the Caribbean News Now story did not meet the international standard of ‘alleging’.)

“According to one such source,” blahblahblahblahblah, it doesn’t even matter because by this point the story has no fucking credibility left and neither does the regional CNN.

But, we soldier on through the mire. We few. We literate and reasonable few. (There’s more of us than you think, Richard. St Lucians are not all dupes.)

CNNow readers and Lucians being bombarded by bullshit.

"Jason, come in, Jason. You said this was a joke. How is this funny? Come in!"

Jason: "It will be funny when it's over. In the meantime, just try not to swallow any bullshit."

 

When it comes to allegations of violent sexual assault, Frederick himself is BOTH as guilty and innocent of a known violent sexual history as any two ministers of Labour put together. So, once again, what dafuq is he talking about?

Me? I’m not accusing anyone of anything when it comes to that. I hit a girl once. More than once frankly. I hit her quite a few times. So I ain’t throwing stones. I’m just making sure not to move back into the damned glass house.

Joe Digenova: Richard Frederick's lawyer and professional Obama-hater

At this point in the story, we are finally introduced to Joe Digenova, who, if the forensics lab worked, would be a suspect in writing the article as his dirty little fingerprints are all over it. Digenova is a one of the US Republican operatives who frequents Fox News with conspiracies that have only one aim in mind – to attack and do harm to the Barack Obama administration.

To say that Frederick’s lawyer is a professional conspiracy theorist is a way more accurate statement than anything published by CNNow. This is a guy who would probably rather believe that Barack Obama is a hybrid monster created by Lizard Men from Mars than accept that Obama has already beat his team twice and maybe it’s time to focus of helping him reinvent America’s economy and society for the 21^st century.

Richard Frederick's role model

 

“It is abundantly clear that false information was provided to harm Richard Frederick,” Digenova says through his proxy at CNNow. But no, it’s not clear. It’s not clear at all. The only thing that is clear here is that Richard Frederick thought he was Icarus and flew too high too fast.

Now, his wings are melting and he wants to blame someone else for his reckless failure to keep his head down.

“At the appropriate time we will take civil action in the matter,” he threatens, emptily. But in order to sue, he has to wait for some new opportunity. Because right now, he and his client have nothing but the time honored tactic of talking total bullshit as if it was perfectly sensible in the hopes that half the fools in the world might believe them, if only for a moment.

“According to separate research…,” the people who supplied false information to the US State Department might have committed a federal offense….” Separate research. This guy should be a comedian. One of his staffer does the calls and the other combs the legislation ON THE SAME CASE, IN THE SAME LAW FIRM, and he calls it separate research. And we’re supposed to think some independent think tank was out there finding out by accident that Kenny Anthony was Satan’s sister’s Nenen’s brother’s son.

At this point, Digenova, Frederick and CNNow do a very strange thing. They begin to talk about things that are actually facts. For two paragraphs, they speak the truth, as they know it. But that’s easy because it’s the truth about someone else. They never actually begin to speak the truth about themselves. (A lesson that The FLOGG has gone to great pains to give example of, to no avail.)

They say there were backchannel links between the US Embassy Bridgetown and the SLP. True. There are backchannel links between any US Embassy and any one of any importance. What matters about this fact they state is the US Embassy in Barbados is pissed off with the Labour Government’s failure to assist them in ‘investigating’ a matter that Labour, while in opposition, provoked them to investigate.

It doesn’t mean that the Americans don’t already know what needs to be known. To a large extent, they know what happened after the 2009/10 period when cops were killing bad boys. What they don’t know is what happened before Labour tipped them off and put Richard Frederick on the US Embassy’s list of most interesting people. It means that the Americans need Labour to open the way for them to make illegally obtained information legal in the right jurisdiction. And Labour, for some ungodly reason is frustrating this cause. They’re basically concealing what they caused to be investigated. And they didn’t even do anything wrong. So, it’s weird, to say the least. Very weird.

Don't smile for me, bro. You promised. Now you have to deliver.

Why are you stonewalling? Why are you shielding them?

 

Digenova, Frederick and CNNow assert that several ministers and the police commissioner were summoned to Bridgetown and ‘urged’ to co-operate back in 2012 and brother, that is the tip of the iceberg. It is the most understated fact of the entire sordid story. Labour people were up and down in the Embassy so much that it would have been cheaper for them to just move the party to Barbados. The secret records of both GOSL and USEB will confirm that. Since Labour came back into power, the Americans have done everything in their power to talk to Labour. But Labour eh hearing. All of a sudden the dirty cops are clean and Richard Frederick is not their business. Bastards. Goddam you, Kenny.

So, those who cannot hear must feel. Hence, the withholding of visas. Hence the sanctions on security assistance.  Hence the closing of the radar station. Hence the deportation of a St Lucian cop in the US about to start a program in forensics. And on and on.

And then, Digenova and Frederick, enabled by CNNow take a swipe at Jadia. So much for the government press secretary’s vacation, eh, Mrs. Jn Pierre?

Aa! How is me, uh?

 

Now Jadia Jn Pierre ain’t no personal friend of mine. We’re cool but that’s it. But to take a swipe at a press secretary whose job is to be the young, smart, beautiful face of a party of old, ugly guys just doesn’t seem necessary or fair. It would be far more fair to blame Lydia Faisal or Cosmos Legrande for Richard Frederick’s problems. Which itself is not completely fair.

The next day in their editorial responding to all reasonable reactions to their story (like peeing and pooping on it), CNNow defended their story, saying that we, the readers, were shooting the messenger. There was one point in their defense.

Labour knows what Richard knows the US Embassy knows that Kenny knows. And yet, despite all their promises to come clean with us, Labour has failed to do what they promised to do, making Kenny Anthony look like he’s just a bluffer.

Bluffer! The fellas calling you 'Bluffer!"

And you still just sit there smiling! Godammit, man!

 

Now St Lucia’s Attorney General’s is threatening to sue Tim Poleon for reading that piece of crap journalism on air verbatim and in its entirety, CNNow is on the defensive, preparing for the worst and hoping for the best, because they are next on the list of people to be sued by the four or five GOSL bosses named in that public relations gas bomb that was passed off as serious journalism.

Then the editorial basically implies that Labour lied to the USEB by making an analogy of an Iraqi called Curveball who was the scapegoat for the Iraq war neo-cons. It then resorts to the last line of defense of all bullshitters, “Prove us wrong, show us the evidence.” Not that the esteemed and prestigious, award-winning and widely admired CNNow is full of shit. Just that, as a paragon of journalism, one would think IT WAS THEIR RESPONSIBILITY TO PRODUCE THE EVIDENCE.

Finally, the editorial ends by saying that they published what they ‘believed’ to be true.

'Believed? You believed it to be true?'

'What do you think this  is? Entertainment? Religion? Politics?'

The preceding was a dramatic impression of:

The FLOGG Blog kicking Caribbean News Now into the toilet. Some reviewers also thought that it could represent Caribbean News Now kicking journalistic standards into the toilet

The third screen shot shows FLOGG messenger boy Jason Sifflet demonstrating the appropriate reaction to journalistic bullshit.

 

Believed? Brothers, verily, verily, I say unto you, this is not religion, THIS IS SPARTA! I mean, journalism. Sorry, I got a little carried away there.

On a very small point, they published some comments made by myself and my incurably Labour friend Frank Charles, saying they made corrections for grammar and spelling. But even that is not true.

They had to modify my comments because I wondered why Caribbean News Now didn’t just give Richard Frederick a hand job, given that their story smelled like such a dirty jamet-bitch-whore. I didn’t say jamet-bitch-whore back then. But I shoulda.

On September 28, CNNow published another story of the matter, but now we realize that there are not worth paying attention to.

Because technology has brought the Caribbean Diaspora closer to home, business people are finding that just about any news content provider with an angle can create an advertising trap, like that leaks out a few grand a month after you pay the freelancers, webmasters and sales people. The result is that some are going to new extremes to attract attention, by which we mean attract revenue. Unfortunately, they are not admitting to go to new extremes. They are still pretending to be for real.

Thank God for The FLOGG, where everyone knows that we’re starting ‘over the edge’ and working our way out from there.

FLOGG Smash!!!!