A wee bit of hysteria

I don’t get this about the Labour Party. It has the filthiest media on the islands – newspapers, radio and television which exist for the main purpose of slandering and denigrating those who oppose the party and dislike its leaders. Yet if anyone dares so much as breathe a word about Labour’s deified leader – whoever he happens to be at the time – shrieks and wails break out about ‘unfair criticism’, ‘gutter journalism’, ‘how low can you go’, and all that hokey. Whichever man happens to have been slotted into place as leader, he becomes untouchable and beyond criticism.

The Times ran a reasonable leading article some days ago, taking Joseph Muscat cautiously to task for playing to the gallery and getting things wrong. There was no fire and brimstone in it; only the suggestion that maybe, just maybe, he was a bit a jerk. His admirers were not best pleased. They wrote letters like this one. Apparently, nobody is allowed to see Muscat for what he is, least of all, good heavens, The Times. We’ve been here before with Alfred Sant.

Letters to the Editor, The Times, Monday, 17th November 2008
Joseph Muscat’s speech in Parliament (2)
Anthony Borg, Naxxar

In the editorial of November 12, entitled Muscat Chooses To Play To The Gallery, The Times gave striking evidence of how low journalism can go. I am a daily reader of The Times but this piece begged the question “Has The Times really reached such base depths?”.

This editorial presents more questions than it provides answers. Does this mean that The Times’ agenda is now in tandem with that of the Nationalist Party which has already started to demonise Joseph Muscat in the same way as it did with his predecessor? If this is the case, is it because the newspaper is already seeing a Prime Minister in the making? Is this because someone from Brussels has decided to pull strings?

The editorial of last Wednesday was, to say the least, degrading to whoever penned it because those of its readers (like myself) who heard Joseph knows that his first main speech in Parliament was mature, inspiring and full of proposals that were intended to better the life of us poor citizens and to help steer this ill-fated country away from the doom that looms ahead. The main objective of the editorial was only one: To try to minimise the big impact that Dr Muscat made in Parliament in his reply to the budget speech.

Nobody can deny the fact that Allied Newspapers are a very strong voice. A voice that influences the new and floating voters. Am I right when I say that it knows all this and that it does not waste an iota of its energy to use this position behind the orchestrated wind that blows in the sails of the Nationalist Party? The Times has the strength to make a minister resign and regrettably we have learnt from past experience that it also has the power of making or breaking. If the powers that be at Allied Newspapers will honestly start to call a spade a spade and use their journalistic acumen without looking in the faces of the Lawrences, then probably we will have a change. Yes change you can! But this is just a dream!