Tag: fourth estate

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Mediawatch Rule of Law

Train wrecks don’t need derailing

Adrian Delia has dismissed reports on messages between him and Yorgen Fenech as “a mudslinging attempt aimed at derailing his work“. The Sunday coffee table news was dominated by an apparent ‘scoop’ from the Times of Malta uncovering the supposed ‘exchange’ of Whatsapp messages. There had even been a dramatic build up with an earlier confrontation by a Times journalist.

Like some latter-day Saint Peter, Delia was repeatedly asked to deny whether he had ever had any form of relationship with Fenech by a journalist who was obviously already in possession of the ‘incriminating’ evidence (that would be kept on hold till the convenient Sunday publication date for full effect. No cocks crowd on the day of the interview but the Times made a big deal of the issue today.

Having seen the supposed Whatsapp exchange (and only on the basis of what has been shown), I think that I can safely conclude that this was a case of harassment by Fenech. Delia seems to have little time for his entreatments and rarely replies until what seems to be a fob off by passing Fenech on to Pierre Portelli to fix a dinner/lunch which we are not even sure ever happened.

The thousands of sleuths who grace the Maltese Republic were all over the social media condemning Delia for this latest “lie”. In his earlier interview with the Times journalist Delia had wriggled and writhed to try to give a legalistic reply – one that implied that if by communication there was meant some sort of dealing then no he did not communicate with Yorgen. Delia might have had this Whatsapp harassment in mind. Surely in normal circumstances nobody in their right mind would consider Yorgen’s pseudo-sycophantic messaging as a basis of some form of effective communication with Delia.

Surely. But this is not normal. In a world of Whataboutism gone mad we have the Sunday papers dominated by a very weak exchange that is neither here nor there while trying to build a very spurious link to Delia being another of Yorgen Fenech’s political relationships. For some context. Labour’s cabinet is still labouring (sorry) under the heavy accusation of having a member who had a much more than platonic relationship with Fenech. Another one is deep in business dealings with Fenech (not the Arrigo style). Yet here we are trying to cause a storm for a one-way set of messages.

You’d think that the Times would have a much higher standard in its quest of fulfilling the fourth estate’s role in a democracy. As things stand it seems to be a weak platform for the disgraced Labour government’s use to disseminate confusion. Worse still it leads to situations where Delia, of all people, can cling to a victim’s alibi of attempts at derailing him.

Now that’s a first. Delia has already long proven to be unfit for political action let alone leadership. His time as PN leader has proven to be a train wreck. To derail a train that is already wrecked and picking up the pieces is something that only a paper desperate for a distraction from the real issues can achieve.

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Mediawatch

Intellectual cowardice and the constitution

MaltaToday carries a report about a man who was arraigned in court for having made what turned out to be false claims about ex-PN leadership contender Francis Zammit Dimech. The man had made these claims on Facebook and Zammit Dimech considered them to be sufficiently injurious and false as to take legal action in this regard (an action for defamation). The outcome is a slap on the hand for the man and apologies that were accepted.

When the law works like a properly oiled machine every citizen gets the service that he deserves. Not only that though, you also have to consider that the correct balance of different freedoms will eventually finds its natural or legal course. Unlike the Paywall Paper and the Indy, MaltaToday does not seem to carry the controversial reports with regards to George Vella’s statements about wanting to rein in the media. Nobody seems to have bothered to transcribe the controversial part of his address so J’accuse has gone and done that for you:

Ejja let us rein in, ejja nikkontrollaw il-media taghna. Mhux inbilli nghidu” ahna le m’ghandna xejn kontra dak u ahna pozittivi” imma imbaghad nafu li l-media taghna (stampata, viziva whatever)  tibqa’ ssawwat tibqa’ ssawwat u tikkritika…hija parti minnha. Ma nistax nghid jiena “le ahna nirrispettaw lil dak li jkun m’ahniex aggressivi” u jkollok il-midja aggressiva u min jifhem fil-midja jghallimni illi taf tkun iktar aggressiv bil-midja milli b’ilsienek u  bil-mod kif inti titkellem imma naraw illi ikun hemm dak l-element ta’… forsi jghiduli “x’ghandek kontra l-media”, il-media allahares ma kenitx, hija r-raba kolonna tad-demokrazija… però il-media responsabbli ukoll u ma nistax jien nuza l-media biex inkeskes biha minn taht biex tohloq l-opinjonijiet minn taht biex naghmel character assassinations minn taht imbaghad nigi nghid “le imma ahna irridu nikkoperaw”. Dawn huma affarijiet illi sfortunatament matul is-snin li ili hawn gew jien rajthom, ghaddejt minnhom u inhoss illi ma gewx ikkontrollati ghal kollox. U irridu noqghodu attenti ghaliex jekk kemmildarba ahna ma jkollniex kontroll fuq dawn l-ghodda illi (gustament ghaliex le) il-partiti illum ihaddmu halli jkunu jistghu iwasslu l-messagg taghhom inkunu qieghdin xorta niffomentaw id-disgwid, niffomentaw il-bad blood u ha nghid wahda halli inkun qed nirrepetiha ghall-miljun darba din : Jekk ahna l-politici ma nirrispettawx lilna infusna, il-poplu ma jirrispettaniex.

It’s a ramble that taken out of context seems to be the fruit of a sudden afterthought in the middle of a speech. Vella’s call to “rein in media” was quickly the subject of newspaper headlines – at least the Independent and the Times. The Independent now carries a clarification by Dr Vella who stated that he was referring to “self-regulation”. There was talk or mention of “breach of privilege” though that seems to have died down too. Some reflections can be made though of what actually was said (and was not said) in those few lines by our Foreign Minister.

1. The forum

George Vella chose to utter these ambiguous words in parliament. True “media taghna” presumably refers to “the media that we own” – which basically could mean the party propaganda machines. Why do so in parliament? Why mention “media” generically in the next statements? The use of phrases such as “character assassinations” is either naively stupid or an attempt at being smart. There is only one type of media that has been constantly pigeonholed as being the main culprit of character assassinations and “attakki fahxija” and that is not one owned or accountable to any of the parties.

2. Practice what you preach

If the problem were limited to the ridiculous state of the party propaganda machines Vella could do nothing better than start cleaning up the act in his own house. Assuming any journalists are left that are not currently in the employ of government then one would expect Vella to be addressing his party’s media lackeys and giving them a new task and set of standards that he so dearly aspires to. After that he could invite the PN to do the same with their own house. A speech in parliament about “media needing to be reined in” that speaks of the “fourth estate” can only be alarming because any excuse is possible to suddenly have parliament assuming the role of regulator and censor.

3. Publish and be damned

Vella’s outburst can be excused because it seems to have been an off the cuff, unprepared set of remarks. Then again this is the foreign minister speaking in parliament. He may have the fault of not being a lawyer and not understanding the import of each and every word that he will utter but that is no excuse at this level. It could only get worse should he really consider to unearth the tool (weapon?) of parliamentary privilege rather than use a press conference to clarify his statements (hopefully in a credible manner). (see Indy report on breach of privilege)

4. Intellectual cowardice

The fear that the parties and their followers have of the power of some sections of the media is incomprehensible. The elephant in the corner in Vella’s speech is another Vella (albeit née Vella). The obsession with the Caruana Galizia’s and Borg Cardona’s of this world has become one gigantic ridiculous mountain. It has led people to confuse free and open discussion, to ignore the basic protections that exist at law should they require them and above all to ignore the fact that blogs and bloggers only have power when people give much value to what they write.

Unlike many of my colleagues I will defend the right of every single blogger to publish and be damned especially if there is an infinitesimal risk that through some rare moment of insight shining from among  a myriad bullshit posts  that blogger could function as another tool in this fourth pillar of democracy.

The gullible willingness of sections of the population who would willingly accede to Vella’s requests to “rein in and control” shocks me a million times more than some ridiculous pink magazine style blog posts about the latest antics of one of our public figures. Even more shocking is the intellectual cowardice of many who would fear speaking out openly against any attempt to introduce regimes that stifle thought and expression with some pithy excuse of protecting the public.

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Mediawatch

The Sacking of a Journalist

The fourth estate being what it is, the news of the sacking of a trainee journalist (he was on probation) in a particular set of circumstances warrants careful examination. J’accuse has a long history of criticising the workings of the mainstream press and is not about to hold back now. I am of course referring to the premature termination of Matt Bonanno’s contractual arrangement with the employers at the Times of Malta. Such termination did not require much of an explanation given that Bonanno was on probation i.e. the sacking required no explanation at all.

This does not mean however that we cannot look further into what happened and how it happened. Now that we have the news from the horse’s mouth (Matt Bonanno’s facebook note – reproduced with his permission further down) we can look at what could possibly have motivated the geniuses at the Times to nip this particular career in the bud. First a little set of clarifying facts:

[box]

(1) Bonanno posted the information of the impending Ministerial visit to tal-Qroqq on a facebook wall that belonged to a friend of his: Ms Abela Garett.

(2) Bonanno did NOT pick up the invitation sent to him in reply by Ms Abela Garrett in which he was asked to “bring his notebook along” to tal-Qroqq the next day for the pre-meditated, non-spontaneous display of disaffection at the Minister’s dealings with public transport.

(3) Bonanno did not inform his editors of the possible protest action – and this is assuming he gave any importance to the wall reply by Abela Garett.

(4) The Times sent ANOTHER journalist to cover Austin Gatt’s university visit. The visit and ensuing ministerial heckling was reported on the Times as it was on all other papers.

(5) The PN sleuths trying to discredit the protesting by Abela Garett included in their list of grievances that (a) the protest was premeditated; (b) Bonanno’s message on facebook was part of the pre-meditation.

(6) While more of the “premeditated” “non-spontaneous” bull was being thrown in direction of the theatrical performance, the Times chose to sever ties with one link in the chain of “premeditation” and sacked Matt Bonanno without so much as a by your leave.[/box]

It stinks. It does. And I do not believe for one moment the whole “conspiracy theory” or the Times is a confederacy of nationalists business. What we have here is an organ that likes to kid itself of being impartial and super partes when it comes to reporting the news suddenly developing a panic attack that it might in some way be “implicated” in a supposed “frame up” of Minister Gatt.

J’accuse believes that the Times people gave absolutely no thought whatsoever to what they were doing before the knee jerk reaction of sacking Matt Bonanno. If the Times had not swallowed  so completely all the bull being shot into their direction by Messrs Bondi, Caruana Galizia and Co. about the evil nature of “non-spontaneous protest” they would have, possibly (and hopefully) noticed that Bonanno’s sole “sin” actually forms part of the repertoire of your average hack.

Yes. The Times sacked a journalist for behaving like one. Activists and ground level journalists constantly interact. Lord knows how many faxes about protests I sent in my time as an activist. If I wanted my organisation to be in the news I’d pretty damn well tell the journalist to “bring his notebook along” and pray to God that he follows suit.

Was Bonanno wrong to tell Abela Garett that Minister Gatt would be at Uni the next day? No. It’s public information after all. Nothing wrong in that.

Was Bonanno wrong not to inform his editors about possible protests occurring on the day? Again all evidence points to exculpating Bonanno. If anything, Bonanno would have abused of such information by “scooping” the issue and being on hand for the news item. Instead he probably did not even bother at all.

The uglier scenario is the alternative one. What if HE HAD told the Times editors that he suspected a possible protest against Austin Gatt on campus? What would they have done? Why are they so eager for the news? Their action (the sacking) might lead us to suspect that they would be more interested in forewarning the Minister than in actually reporting the event. After all they did get the report just the same but their reaction (the sacking) makes them seem rather angry about it all. The thing is… they lost control. They could not control the news. They had to follow and report.

Matt Bonanno’s inadvertent – and I insist unplanned – slipping of the bit of info to Abela Garrett led the Times to behave as a normal newspaper – one that reports the news as it unfolds before it without trying to tamper in any way. The moment though that the PN machine set the wheels in motion and started pointing fingers about absurd theories of “premeditation” and “nonspontaneity” the Times panicked.

And Matt was their perfect scapegoat.

 

Matt’s Note on Facebook (reproduced with his permission).

[box] I wasn’t going to write an explanation at first, but seeing as though gossip and rumours are being fired off from all sides, I thought it would be best to have my perspective wedged somewhere in between all the bullshit. Not that I ultimately give a damn what people think; times like these make it easier to realise who is not worth your time. Firstly, let me be the first to admit that what I did (and what I did exactly will be explained next) was spectacularly naive, and mildly unprofessional.

What I did was this: The day before the incident, I posted on Ms Abela Garrett’s wall, “Guess who’s going to be at University tomorrow.” I barely paid attention to her comment in which she told me she was going to give me a good story. So much so that I didn’t even tell my editors about it, and as a result did not attend the event, which by the way was public and not in the least bit top secret. Therefore, the whole thing was not orchestrated in any way. If I really, intentionally wanted to orchestrate something like that, I would have messaged her privately, not joked semi-publicly on her Facebook wall. In the words of John Cleese in a Monty Python sketch, I may be an idiot but I’m no fool.

A couple of other things which need to be cleared up are:

1) I did not write the article. I was busy following George Pullicino around a valley at the time and call him as my witness.

2) It was not me who decided to portray Ms. Abela Garrett as a heroine. I have no ill feeling towards The Times, especially my former colleagues in the newsroom.

Even though I feel my sacking was harsh, I was still on probation and they were well within their rights to give me the boot. The only thing I was disappointed about was not being given the chance to explain myself or apologise, in person. I was of course asked to explain myself via email on Thursday, since I was off that day, but I kept it brief and intended to explain myself fully, in front of the editors, the next day. On Friday, after being left in the newsroom for about 2 hours, I was called to HR and told my probation was terminated with immediate effect. To be honest I didn’t give my side of things, seeing as I wasn’t asked to. I don’t beg.

Neither am I going to be bearing a grudge against the bloggers who blew the incident out of proportion. They do what they do and I should have known better than to give them fuel to fire their own agendas.

And before they claim they don’t have an agenda, if Messrs. Bondi (sorry but I can’t be arsed putting the accent on the i) and Caruana Galizia were the journalists they claim to be, they would have phoned me to get my side of things before stampeding towards their own, warped conclusions. But that’s not how they work, obviously.

I will say one thing however. Caruana Galizia claims not to be on Facebook, but that makes her lifting photos, statuses etc. from the site and putting them on her blog even more morbid and stalker-like. Then again, she probably doesn’t search for them herself (if she does then she really does need to get a life) and has her minions do it for her. To these sad, miserable sycophants I say: do the rest of us a favour and stop robbing the planet of oxygen.

Actually now that I think of it I’d better remove the pictures of me French kissing a horse with a Labour flag draped over it while attending a pasta najt. (Kidding, Daffy) Finally, a big soppy thank you to my friends who have supported me over the past few days.

I’m touched, really. Anyway, I’ll be getting on with my life now.

Over and out. Matthew Bonanno.

Ps. I wish Maltatoday had chosen a better photo of me. [/box]

Categories
Mediawatch

Plategate revisited

The Plategate saga is in the news again thanks to the testimony given in court by the accused. Here’s some J’accuse pointers that could have very well been gathered over the various posts in which we chronicled the event and questioned its motives through the past 18 months. If you are interested (really?) in previous posts then just search “Plategate” in the J’accuse search box. You risk being pleasantly entertained.

WARNING TO RUNS ENTHUSIASTS – the material in this and related posts risks damaging your brain. Proceed only under adult supervision. Yes, we have a well-groomed high horse this morning.

So here are the questions we have been asking and which we would like you to ask yourselves.

1. The court case is a defamation case. Not so surprisingly, all the grand discoveries relating to improper behaviour by a public persona were not brought to the attention of the appropriate forum. Does the Maltese legal, political and administrative system have an appropriate forum? Where does one go to with an allegation or proof of improper behaviour by a public person?

(difficulty level : Breeze)

2. The accused in the defamation case used a blog – a public means of communication – to transmit information relating to a particular person’s behaviour implying that this behaviour was unbecoming and inappropriate. This action is commendable and wins full support of J’accuse insofar as it fulfils the fourth estate’s duty of monitoring and revealing the behaviour of the other estates in order to render their operation transparent and in order to give full effect to the fourth estate’s role as a check and balance. This is a strong power of the fourth estate and should be wielded with responsibility if it is to be effective.

Do you think that in this case the Runs acted responsibly in order to fulfil the duty of the fourth estate?

3. The Crucial “Why Now?” issue. There’s no prizes guessing why a defamation case ended up being the best route of defence for the alleged victim. Defamation focuses the attention on the derogatory, cheap and sleazy language that was opted for by the blog when exposing the improper behaviour. A factual allegation such as “drugs were available at parties” differs greatly from the statement “your backside is the size of a bus”. Worse still for the accused, the motivation for bringing out the information is brought further into question by the manner in which such information was presented as well as by the timing. Here is the  statement by the accused giving testimony giving reasons for her timing:

Mrs Caruana Galizia said she started writing about Magistrate Scerri Herrera because the situation had become ‘completely out of hand’. She had not written anything before because she had had pending cases before the Magistrate.

From an objective point of view journalists would do well to follow up on Caruana Galizia’s steps and monitor the behaviour of public persons – bringing them to light as soon as they have sufficient evidence. And ASKING PERTINENT QUESTIONS…

The ethics of journalism require that the wielding of this power is exercised with due diligence. That diligence includes not sitting on information for as long as convenient – only to unleash it as a weapon of hatred or spite.

Beyond Plategate the measure that could be learnt from this case is that keeping information for its (un)timely use i.e. when it hurts most is just as ethically irresponsible and dangerous as having a magistrate publicly act below the standards expected of her office.

Doing so – using information as a blackmail or bargain in some twisted ill-conceived power struggle – could deal a lethal blow to the waning confidence that the public has on journalistic integrity in this country.