Category: Mediawatch

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Mediawatch Politics

Freedom Xejn

A happy freedom day holiday to y’all on the island. Why the photo you ask? Well no disrespect and all but this geezer is everything and all about Freedom Day in 2011. He was there on the original freedom day when Malta celebrated the non-renewal of a contract by its wise and sage leader. He stood behind and smiled as il-perit climbed what must be Malta’s ugliest monument ever and lit the torch of freedom.

He probably was smiling at home in Tripoli or some other Libyan palace when a few years later il-perit would bargain a constitutional PLPN entente of reform – adjusting parliamentary representation in exchange for the neutrality clause.

He must have smiled again when il-perit’s Malta kow-towed to most of his wishes in all forms of subservient arse-licking including most importantly the early warning system for any menaces from the north by Mintoff’s follower (sic – successor).

He smiled again when the government of Work, Justice and Freedom (act II) shot into power and quickly reassured him that “if we want everything to change, then everything must be the same“.

God knows if he was smiling yesterday from afar as the progressive, modernist leader and purveyor of European values told the assembled crowd of nostalgics that “we won’t take sides”.

Freedom? What freedom?

Chained by PLPN yellow politics? That’s Freedom xejn. (no freedom).

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Mediawatch Rubriques

I.M. Jack – the déménagement issue

Boxes are being packed and labeled. Furniture is being sold at bargain prices and frantic contacts are being made with various moving companies as D-day approaches. J’accuse is moving base and leaving the city. Come May we will be castellans in the village of Dondelange and you can expect more of the current hiccuped manner of posting on the blog. Meanwhile here are a few things I’ve been meaning to post about and had no time to.

1. Rules of referendum

Our pet storyline is making the headlines. Raphael Vassallo explains the implications of the PLPN drafted rules on the next refered. In the article “Divorce: Law assumes referendum will be held along party lines” Raphael points out the rules of the game and how they seem to be written almost exclusively with two parties in mind. Well there you have it. Further proof that the PLPN Dumbing Down theory is not simply a theory. We now have a ridiculous situation where a party that has no position on divorce (PL) and another that has a position but will not do anything about it lest it loses precious votes (PN) are the only two who can participate in the administrative aspect of the referendum. No amount of public formations f Pro- and Con- entities will change the law. Funny? Not really. This is what we mean when we say that electoral rules are written solely with the intention of preserving and reinforcing the bipartisan status quo.

 

2. Flights of Fancy

In the same vein let it be registered that J’accuse’s position on the expat vote in the referendum is consistent with previous positions. We firmly believe that in the 21st century expats should be given the opportunity to vote either by overseas ballot or via post – especially when it comes to a vote in a consultative referendum. J’accuse never agreed with the PLPN farce of sponsored flights – and still does not agree with the principle. We doubt whether any sponsored tax-free flights will be offered in this hour of Air Malta need (although they would actually serve as a hidden form of subsidy for the airline) but should they be offered we will use them until the day the possibility of voting from abroad is offered.

3. Referendum and Church Points

The campaign proceeds with inputs from all sides. The consultative referendum is turning into making a point and just that. So yes, vote if you have to and vote in favour of the introduction of divorce. It will be sad to see Joseph Muscat and Labour acting as though they carried the vote themselves – they did not and they are not helping. Worse still those idiots and nincompoops writing away on facebook as though Labour is facing a new interdiction better wake up and smell the coffee – their party is just as cowardly yellow as most of the no to divorce factoid inventing freaks. If ever divorce is introduced in Malta it will be DESPITE LABOUR, DESPITE PN and DESPITE CATHOLIC proselytisation.

4. Giletti… the worst that RAI can get

The Maltese world is in uproar because a third rate “journalist” on RAI TV dared allege that the Maltese shoot on immigrants and that is why they choose Lampedusa. I tend to see the reaction as overblown and for a while I would also go far as to say that an Ambassador phoning in to correct would be a step too far. Then I think of the Mexican Ambassador officially complaining to the BBC “over “offensive, xenophobic and humiliating” comments made about his country on Top Gear.” It’s not a matter of colonial mentality as other “journalists” might put it. I do believe that an official protest is in place – it’s the rabid reaction by the internet posse that really was over the top. The colonial mentality – or rather the PLPN educated reaction is one of violent tirades of personal retribution on anything that smacks of RAI and Giletti. In a nation of people brought up and stunned into an aggressive-other mentality there was little more to be expected. The reaction, though originally justified, tends to obviate any response after a while. And anyway… does Giletti know that our army are too busy daring each other to chew on poisonous beetles?

5. Libya

It’s not that I wanted to relegate the topic but as the UN sanctioned intervention continues there are a number of pressing questions that cannot be ignored. As I read today of the developments in Sirte I couldn’t help but notice that we have moved very, very far from the protection of civilians. At which point did the advance of the rebels become covered by the UN sanctions? I have no shadow of doubt that (a) Ghaddafi has to go and (b) that the dawn of a new, free Libya is ultimately desirable. What I do worry about is the legal somersaults that will be required to differentiate any intervention that is occuring henceforth from the need to intervene in other nations such as Syria, Yemen, Bahrain and who knows…. China. It’s not a war – there is no casus belli. It’s not a UN Sanctioned rebellion (they made pretty sure of that). Then why are missiles thundering over Sirte and getting closer to Tripoli?

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Arts Mediawatch

Orwell's Newspeak

Here’s an extract from an essay by George Orwell that appeared in Horizon in the April 1946 edition. The essay entitled “Politics and English Language” may be found in its entirety on this page. Now to the extract:

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called PACIFICATION. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called TRANSFER OF POPULATION or RECTIFICATION OF FRONTIERS. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called ELIMINATION OF UNRELIABLE ELEMENTS. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them. Consider for instance some comfortable English professor defending Russian totalitarianism. He cannot say outright, “I believe in killing off your opponents when you can get good results by doing so.” Probably, therefore, he will say something like this:

While freely conceding that the Soviet régime exhibits certain features which the humanitarian may be inclined to deplore, we must, I think, agree that a certain curtailment of the right to political opposition is an unavoidable concomitant of transitional periods, and that the rigors which the Russian people have been called upon to undergo have been amply justified in the sphere of concrete achievement.

The inflated style is itself a kind of euphemism. A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outlines and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns, as it were instinctively, to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as “keeping out of politics.” All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer. I should expect to find — this is a guess which I have not sufficient knowledge to verify — that the German, Russian and Italian languages have all deteriorated in the last ten or fifteen years as a result of dictatorship.

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Mediawatch

J'accuse Shortlisted for Journalism Award

You may have read by now that the J’accuse column on the Malta Independent on Sunday has been shortlisted for the “Opinion Article” section of the Malta Journalism Awards organised by the Institute of Maltese Journalists.  J’accuse has often been critical of the awards themselves – especially since we could never fathom a system that requires in which you nominate yourself for the prize.

Nothing has changed since then and we do believe that one reason the nominations are not “altruistic” so to speak is the fish-pondism that curiously (and understandably) is part of journalistic culture in Malta. It’s not like we’re falling over ourselves to say how good “the others” are is it? Anyways – so why are J’accuse’s articles on the nominations list and how did they end up being shortlisted?

We have Alex Vella Gera to thank (he does not know yet). Around the time the nominations were opened AVG was supposed to get a literary prize of sorts. Alex refused to pick up the prize in protest at the obscenity case that was still open at the time – if I get this right, Alex would not receive a prize from a government that still tolerated such laws. I am sure Alex will correct me if I am wrong – he did and here is his full explanation:

I didn’t attend the awards ceremony for this reason alone: because it was held under the auspices of the prime minister, leader of the political party which runs NET TV, and which accused me and Mark Camilleri of paedophaelia (a pretty serious accusation, especially when unfounded, in this day and age). My not attending was not a non-acceptance of the prize (I need the money badly) and neither a protest against being hauled to court. I bear no grudges about that. I hope that’s clear now, although I suspect I’ll be called to correct misconceptions and inaccuracies once again soon enough. – AVG

Some people, commenting on the AVG business, said it was ironic that he was being awarded a prize when his work was being “censored” by the police and when he was actually still an accused in court. Sweet. Only Alex was not awarded the prize for “Li Tkisser Sewwi” so it was a little less ironic.

Back to us. We liked the idea of prizes for misfits. So we nominated three articles from J’accuse. The articles in question all deal with the state of journalism in Malta – something that J’accuse has taken much to heart believe or not. We did not really think we’d get very far to be honest so Kudos for the shortlisting. As an addendum we would like to add that we would have liked to nominate some blog posts for the category of e-journalism but our questions regarding the procedure for an electronic (unsigned) application remained unanswered.
Here are the shortlisted articles:

1. The Day Journalism Died (28th February 2010)

In which it is argued that Malta’s foremost programme (winner of the Best Current Affairs Programme in the Malta TV Awards) that boasts that it sets standards in investigative journalism has abdicated its responsibility. The article questions whether the ethical standards that should be upheld by investigative journalists have not been lost using the Bondi+ programme about blogging as an example.

2. A Nation Divorced from Reality (11th July 2010)

In which both censorship and divorce are examined in the light of current developments and attitudes and in which J’accuse returns to the running theme that no matter what the medium for discussion is or what the current theme is, the Maltese have difficulties reconciling themselves with the image in the mirror.

3. The Power and the Glory (28th November 2010)

In which the relationship between power and exposure/popularity is examined. J’accuse analyses the concept of “fish-pondism” or the refusal to acknowledge other sources/opinion within the journalistic/opinion column community. Is Maltese media prepared to engage with the New Media or will “fish-pondism” prevail?

It’s not really about “winning” the prize – we’d actually be surprised if we got much further than this (incidentally congrats and good luck to fellow shortlisted entries Claire Bonello and Kristina Chetcuti). It’s more about making the point in the community that should be listening.

Incidentally the Maltese blogging community is getting a shake up (and is very much alive and kicking) over on facebook thanks to Davinia Hamilton’s new page. Here’s to hoping that a new phase of cross-referencing discussion will open: still trying to find a way to create a common blogroll for Maltese blogs.

 

 

 

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Admin Mediawatch

Sleeping Bitches & Galliano

A serialised long post intended to reassure readers that while we normally let sleeping dogs lie there is no reason to believe that we are reluctant to call a spade a spade.

N.B. To be read in doses. Reminder to Daphne-lites: You are free not to read on. On the other hand the breaking down into parts of this post is intended to facilitate cutting and pasting for better presentation while posting in other blogs’ comment sections.

I

The intellectual standards of this too-complicated-for-plebs blog do not normally allow us (the Royal We for Wankellectuals) to descend into the pits of mud-slinging that can be discovered daily in other quarters of the Maltese blogging world.

Back in 2007 J’accuse (6 on the 10th of March) had a tough time moderating the bitching and haggling in the comment section. Having realised belatedly the usefulness of the new media (thanks to the eyeopening sessions on J’accuse in mid-election campaign) some of those commentators went on to open blogs  of their own… perpetuating their inimitable style developed in the comment section.

II

That was then. Meanwhile, we remained happy to discuss politics and not people, ideas and not looks, values not prejudices – all the while observing the development of the use of the new media. We continued to ask questions – in particular with regards to different parts of the Fourth Estate. Others chose what a colleague of mine called the Slash and Burn style of journalism – and got their accolades from their acolytes.

Today, I feel obliged to put up this post after a sincere demonstration of concern by readers who via e-mails and phone calls wondered whether I would ever reply to what appears to be a sudden fixation by Daphne Caruana Galizia on what she calls a “Class A Wanker” (actually she claims to have called me so several times bah… sticks, stones and girls in a playground).

III

I would normally have no time to check the lesser side of her blog – the Runs – having long abandoned any hope of finding any intelligent conversation by the various aliases. I have no problem with checking Daphne’s daily postings because I cannot honestly expect to comment on the internet news without taking into account other blogger’s points of view and slants on the news. I have no time to waste on the ramblings of the Daphne-lites in the comments section though and were it not for the signalling by J’accuse readers and a sudden mention in a post attacking an article by Saviour Balzan (but mainly based on the usual “guilt by association” approach – more on this later)  I would not have noticed the revival of the DCG fixation.

It transpires that a few Daphne-lites have been stoking the columnist’s easily flammable temper by posting interesting observations about myself or my blog. It also turns out that Daphne is stupid enough to think that I would actually post on her blog with an alias. I have never hidden behind an alias and never will. What did happen – as I confirmed by using common sense and a bit of research – is that a person who commented regularly on this blog (using his first name to boot), and who is based in Luxembourg, started to do so on Daphne’s (using the same first name).

The paranoid reaction to the endless nit-picking by this particular commentator was to send him back to “his own blog” to play. Yawn-inducing paranoia had come into play.

IV

Daphne and the Daphne-lites have a fixation with the unreadability of this blog. Incredibly they also have a knack of referring to it constantly. Does that classify as irony? Sadly for the rent-a-crowd in that corner of the net J’accuse shows no signs of abating and remains a steady reference point for the more balanced approach to analysing current affairs. (Did I mention that we turn 6 on the 10th of March?).

Of course our analysis might not always fit in to the jigsaw puzzle of the World as Seen from the Runs. Here are a few (unanswered) examples:

  • PLATEGATE or Why Now? Part 1: J’accuse was the ONLY presence in any part of the press asking the most pertinent question in the Daphne Caruana Galizia vs Consuelo Scerri Herrera saga. If Daphne had collected such a wealth of information over a long period of time alleging inappropriate behaviour by a Magistrate … what prompted her to start blogging about it?  Why did she choose that particular moment? Was it so hard to admit that it had nothing to do with civic conscience or journalistic probity? WHY NOW?
  • RAYMOND CARUANA or Why Now? Part 2: Almost a year passed and we had a similar situation. DCG upped the ante on Illum journalist Julia Farrugia. Suddenly more than 25 years after the actual facts DCG developed an acute sense of journalistic investigation and went on a whole trip piecing publicly available information together to develop a story. What you think about the story is irrelevant. Daphne’s timing is not. It is irresponsible to say the least. But very typical of journalism that is not at the service of the public and the truth. It is journalism at the service and use of private means and ends. I don’t buy the stories of Daphne being some poodle to RCC or some other masters bidding her to do this and that. What I do read is a very unprofessional and unethical application of journalistic skill. Why now indeed?
  • JPO: Funny how JPO is now accusing Daphne in court (under oath) of being a slave to political masters – ready to do some spin damage at their beck and call. J’accuse can vouch that Daphne was busy insulting anyone who dared criticise crocodile tear Jeffrey during the Mistra saga. She backed the nationalist party’s outright defence of the man even in such instances when he was given a press card to ask questions to Alfred Sant. Press decency my backside… the imperative was save Jeffrey… save the party. Especially from people who were “setting themselves up as objects of hate”… yep this was the time when Daphne heaped insults on anyone who dared propose that the PL/PN option was a blind, valueless cul-de-sac…. we would be vindicated come the divorce issue (among others).. but hey what counted was the character assassination at the time.

V

Taste. Daphne is big on guilt by association and character assassination. Who will ever forget the “zokk u fergha” campaign? Just look now at the Mintoff-Labour-Gaddafi saga as Daffers turns into a one-woman CNN of sorts reporting such great events as which flag is flying over the Libyan embassy in between harassing Graffiti poster carriers in wolf-in-sheeps’ clothing outfit.

The Saviour Balzan post referred to above was a clumsy attempt at throwing a number of perceived “nasties” together. Here’s the list of persons supposedly manning the barricades in some imagined revolution :

Salvu Balzan, Roger de Giorgio, JPO, the Prisoner of Zenda from Brussels, Matthew Vella, Al Jazeera Stagno Navarra, Choccies Benoit, Josanne Cassar, Secret Weapon Astrid, Julia tal-Guy, Charlon ta’ Albertown, xi Claire Bonello max-shag ta’ Norman Lowell, Ronnie Pellegrini, David Friggieri and Jacques Rene Zammit. Jason Micallef will man the field hospital and the Communications Coconut can be used to sneak messages below the radar across AnAmy lines. Don’t forget to take Reno Calleja with you, my dears, u xi AST ukoll ghax dak espert kbir fir-regimes. U jekk ghandkom bzonn xi covert operative, tinsewx li ghandkom il-Guy tat-Tunny Net.

 

Hospitals, covert operatives, regimes… jeez imagination does run wild at night doesn’t it? Oh Well, should our revolution ever need a kitchen stocked with such WMDs as crockery of the finest kind we know who to turn to don’t we?

In one fell swoop Jacques René Zammit is equal to Reno Calleja is equal to Ronnie Pellegrini is equal to Roger Degiorgio etc etc. It’s obvious. If you haven’t swallowed the “blog is unreadable” line then you might as well believe that Jacques Zammit, Reno Calleja, AST and Franco Farrugia (another one bandied around who I do not know from Adam) have one and the same objective.

Anybody who knows me or any of the above would know that this couldn’t be further from the truth. Daphne is more comfortable avoiding subjects such as Plategate or constructive criticism of the faults in our representatives operation and chooses to build on the guilt by association. The frenetic, paranoid attempt at bunching everyone who she disagrees with into one caricatured bundle is much easier on the mind of her readers anyway.

That way she can let fire with the Wanker or unmarried or nerd or whatever she perceives as the latest trendy insult…

VI

So yes. We’ve taken some time to look at why Daphne has suddenly worried our readers with a few gratuitous insults aimed our way.

Read my lips (or my characters):

Jacques René Zammit has never insulted Daphne Caruana Galizia.

I have criticised her modus operandi. I have criticised her argument but I have NEVER insulted the person.

There must be something to be read in the fact that Daphne Caruana Galizia has never replied to any of the critical arguments posited here and elsewhere. If the answer, like her friend Lou’s is that she does not read the blog… that it is boring …it still does not explain the insults. If you chose to take note of criticism then you might as well have the decency to reply with counterarguments. Insults or character attacking with guilt by association does not help.

Don’t get me wrong. Insult as much as you like.. after all it is a free world and I am fully aware of the heat and kitchen argument. It’s just that it is good for readers to know where the insults are coming from and what they are all about. It goes without saying that the level of insults, inventions and character assassination attempts will be expected to increase over the coming days.

I’ll do my damn best not to bother much with anything coming my way from that corner of the net and I kindly ask readers to do the same. J’accuse goes on with its publish and be damned approach at blogging.

This wankellectual is almost done. Now for the finale… the answer you have all been waiting for:

VI

What is the difference between John Galliano and Daphne Caruana Galizia?

One tends to dress weirdly, hurl abusive insults in what sounds like an alcoholic rage and has a funny moustache when all made up…

…  the other was fired by Dior.

 

When they say let sleeping dogs lie… it doesn’t mean you have to allow them to twist the truth. – J’accuse 2011

 

ADDENDUM: Note to TYOM people. You will inevitably reproduce this post because it deals with your pet hate. I know it is useless “forbidding” you to do so because what is good for the goose is good for the gander but if you do so then also have the decency to publish this addendum:

J’accuse DOES NOT and WILL NEVER endorse, support or in any way agree with TYOM, its content or its style.This kind of site can only be a disservice to the idea of proper use of new media and to the proper development of political discussion.

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Jasmine Mediawatch

Unbelievable

They gathered today in Valletta for a peaceful demonstration of solidarity with Libya and the Libyans. They gathered to send a clear message to Muammar – Free Libya! There were Libyans and there were Maltese. There were politicians and there were journalists and opinion columnists and bloggers. And there were also members of Malta’s Moviment Graffiti. The Moviment members had prepared banners among which were banners with a photo of Malta’s Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi embracing Muammar Gaddafi. Under the photo was the word SHAME.  Another picture-less banner combined the names of Joseph Muscat and Lawrence Gonzi before the word SHAME.

The Moviment message was clear. They were not only showing their solidarity with the Libyan people but also expressing their thoughts on the leaders of this country who have entertained the Libyan oppressor in the past. Being the aggressive youth that they are they were more intent on “shaming” the leaders than on hanging their own heads in shame in the name of all the Maltese people who went along with their leaders. But hey – it’s their banner, their expression….

Enter the gurus of Maltese journalistic scene Lou Bondi and Daphne Caruana Galizia. The Times reports that they “protested immediately”. Against what exactly? Bondi is seen in the video telling an activist that “Qed tgerrex in-nies” (You are sending people away). What people exactly? People who cannot bear to be reminded that even their leaders coaxed the Libyan leader and did business with him? Who wants that kind of people in the protest anyway. Surely Daphne will agree. After all she has spent much of the last part of February reminding us of Labour’s not too cosy bedding with Muammar.

What sorry excuse were we to hear now? That the protest is in Solidarity with the Libyan people? Is that the same Libyan people that feel betrayed by the west and its governments and the dealings they have had with the oil rich nation to the detriment of its citizens? Is the solidarity just words? What bullshit.

Andrew Borg Cardona piled on the venom from his blog in the Times:

Would I have joined my friends Lou Bondi and Daphne Caruana Galizia in protesting at Moviment Graffiti’s cheap, childish, hypocritical, myopic and generally revolting little stunt? Their stunt cheapened not only Graffiti themselves, if cheapening what is now obviously worthless is even possible, but diluted, even if only very slightly, the cause they were pretending to uphold.

I’m still waiting for my comment on that particular blog post to appear but I’m not holding my breath. Childish, hypocritical, myopic? I wonder who’s who.