Marc Edge and his Fiji smear campaign

Image borrowed from Marc Edge's The Tyee article today ... "torched by
Fijian media politics" is the claim. Photo: Shutterstock

HARDLY SURPRISING that Dr Marc Edge, described in the Canadian news blog The Tyee as a journalism "professor" which he was certainly not in Fiji, should switch his smear blowtorch to Café Pacific publisher David Robie. Attack anybody to avoid being responsible for his own demise at the University of the South Pacific. With a quicklink to this blog's article on Fiji Today, Edge added an introductory comment alleging:

Robie has been behind the smear campaign from the start and supports media repression in Fiji.

Robie replies:

This laughable, paranoid and dishonest statement by Marc Edge is an example of why he has been such a joke in Pacific media education circles. For the record I have not been involved in any "smear campaign", but I have certainly been campaigning on Pacific media freedom issues for more than the past two decades or so and I have been opposed to all military regimes. Being founding co-convenor of Pacific Media Watch in 1996; author of several books, including Mekim Nius on Pacific media politics in 2004; and co-author of the Pacific's first regional media freedom report in 2011 are just among the many outputs. What has he contributed to the region other than being an armchair bleater?

• Vendetta journalism and counterpropaganda, 'Fiji style'