Cowboy Kiwi Journalism with an Insidious Agenda - Part 1

Part 1: Blatant misconduct by a media house and their representatives

What happens when what we read, we can no longer trust? Well, at least then we are reading with discernment. Most mainstream media are pushing certain well-worn narratives as facts, so we must start pushing back and holding them accountable to following even basic journalistic standards and ethics.

Sadly, from personal experience I will dissect an article which doesn’t take too much sleuthing to work out there is blatant reporting injustice, misrepresentation, and bias going on. Really, shame on Stuff, the media house, for employing this sort of journalism and selling it as real news. I’m not sure how these journalists sleep at night knowing they are deliberately misleading their readers…

More fiction than fact

In 2018, Stuff, a NZ online news company wrote a smear article about a spiritual organisation called Kosmic Fusion and its Founders Sree Maa Shri Ji, that I’ve been involved with off and on. This was written by Steve Kilgallon and Tony Wall. These two characters abysmally failed to uphold basic ethics and practices of journalism. They shamelessly published an extremely biased article that demonised two incredibly selfless people helping others and sharing a benevolent Frequency for the benefit of humanity.

The article was originally instigated by two former volunteers (known to us as Dallia and Irene but in the article, they refer to themselves as Iphigenia Amoutsias and Joy Vottus), who were asked to leave the organisation because of their unethical behaviour, such as stealing and narcissistic abuse.

In this short blog series, I would like to share some brief points to illustrate why the article is biased, how a thorough investigation was not carried out and a false representation of the Founders and their humanitarian and spiritual work was done.

 

Their (lack of) journalistic process…

1)      Their original source

The individuals who instigated the Stuff article are ex-members of Kosmic Fusion and are depicted as innocent, but all proof of their unethical behaviour has been omitted and disregarded in the article, despite it being provided to the journalists.

The journalists were given a lot of evidential proof of Iphigenia and Joy’s behaviour, for example whatsapp chat histories, email correspondence, even private letters written by Clarito Parsons to Sree Maa Shri Ji, and recordings from workshops that displayed how at every point in time transparency was maintained by Sree Maa. These were not included nor mentioned in the article.

The Founders, Sree Maa Shri Ji’s names were printed fully but the two ex-participants made sure to change their names and not use the names they were known as in Kosmic Fusion. Iphigenie Amoutsias was known to us as Dallia, and now calls herself Malana B.Taresi and Joy Kuo as she calls herself in the article came to Kosmic Fusion as Irene Kuo (and has changed her name yet again, to Joy Vottus).

 

2)      Incorrect reporting of even the simplest facts

Major confusion was instilled into the article by mixing Kosmic Fusion and the Facilitator in Training (FiT) programme together. The FiT programme was under the umbrella of Kosmic Fusion but only catered to a few individuals who had signed up for it; 15 to be precise in 2015, and the number became less over time as participants left as and when they wished.

The USP of Kosmic Fusion is the Awakenin Transformation workshop where energetic initiations and activations are done, and the Quantum Vortex Scalar Wave-Photon Pulse (QVSWPP) is gifted by the Founders. Absolutely no mention of Hinduism or any teachings from any religion are imparted, but the article insinuates Kosmic Fusion turned into Hinduism. This is untrue as the fact remains, that not one of the hundreds of participants of the Awakenin Transformation workshop all over the world were ever introduced or told to follow Hinduism.

Even the basic facts in the article haven’t been checked. Kosmic Fusion was founded earlier than reported. In the article they claim that there were 12 people based in Auckland, which was untrue as most of us are based in other countries all over the world. Plus, there were only a maximum of 3 in-house volunteers at the Ashram House, with a few visiting occasionally. The article gives a completely different impression.

 

3)      Extreme selection bias of interviewees

Only one participant of the FiT Programme at the time of the article ‘investigation’ in 2018, Ritu Bhargava, was interviewed, despite me giving names and contact details of all active participants of the FiT programme to Steve. Ritu Bhargava was literally ambushed by Tony in her hair salon without and pressured to give an interview on the spot. She was shaken up by the tactics used to coerce her and also felt that she was not given enough time to explain herself.

The two key people, Clarito Parsons and Teh Liping, who closely interacted with Joy and Iphigenia and could have given great insight into their unethical behaviour and abuse were deliberately not interviewed. It appears that the journalists had already predetermined the narrative and any evidence or person that would have given a counter-narrative was ignored.

The three people quoted in the article as ‘Katy’ (a pseudonym), anonymous and Sheree were not a part of the FiT Programme or the related Ashram House project, but their testimonies were used to create confusion, mislead, and present the article as if it were balanced.

When they approached me, I was not active in the FiT Programme. Phoning me out of the blue they subjected me to a 15-minute phone interview without giving any background to the article. When I asked to see the quotes they wanted to use in the article, they never sent me anything to check nor got back to me. 

It later dawned on me that the reason for the call. It was that some time earlier that Dallia had slyly approached me by leaving a note at a neighbouring business to where I was working (see below). In this she invited me to join hands with her and Joy to run a smear campaign, with an intention to take revenge. Dallia did this covertly, as I had cut off contact with her after all the abuse I had endured at her hands, yet she still thought she could manipulate me, as by that stage I had left the FiT Programme and so she thought I would therefore become their accomplice.

 

As you can see from this blog, the article shows gross negligent behaviour, from what the two journalists included and selectively omitted to deliberately defame Kosmic Fusion and its Founders. Rather, the perpetrators (ex-FiT participants) who were extremely abusive, were portrayed as innocent, whilst gaslighting the true innocents – the signature hallmark of narcissists.

 

Continue with Part 2 of the series: The church, media and anti-cult organisation nexus