Malta Today fails to do its research – again
Pull the other one, Kermit
One of the most important skills in interviewing those who might have something to hide is doing your research and going to that interview armed with some facts.
Reno Bugeja does it very well on TVM’s Dissett, for instance.
That way, when your interviewee gives you a ‘whitewash’ answer, you don’t have to accept it but can come back at him with an ‘Ah, yes, but…’.
Malta Today carries an interview with Robert Musumeci in today’s edition (what a surprise), complete with flattering soft focus photograph that doesn’t reveal the comb-overs at the sides of his head, which showed up clearly in the counting-hall footage.
‘Eh, we have to make him look good, so that we can say that they’re all jealous of him.’
So tiring.
I haven’t read the piece properly yet, but one paragraph leaped out at me because it was the perfect example of how Musumeci plays with words and how suckers like his interviewer fall for it.
His interviewer asked him whether Magistrate Herrera ever appointed him as a paid court expert since “the relationship” started. It’s a damn shame that some reporters from a certain kind of social background appear to have a great deal of trouble with the word ‘sex’.
Apparently, it’s too naughty to use, and if they use it, other people might think they’re ‘baxxi’. I have no such qualms.
“The relationship” can mean any sort of relationship, even mere friendship. The interviewer would have left Musumeci rather less leeway if he had qualified that relationship as sexual, but perhaps the aim was to give him as much leeway as possible.
This was Musumeci’s reply: “We have been friends for the past years. Once our friendship turned into a relationship” – again, no sex, I see – “she took a decision not to give me any such work. This was months before we even started living together.”
I noticed immediately that Musumeci had avoided the crucial point at issue: whether he was given appointments by the magistrate after they had begun to have sex with each other.
His point that she had stopped by the time they were living together is quite irrelevant. One imagines that they didn’t wait, in a curious perversion of Victorian thinking, until they began to share a home before they started to fornicate (perhaps the more fastidious of my readers prefer this word to ‘shag’).
“Oh no, Robert, you mustn’t see me in my underwear! We’re not living together yet!”
She would have had to be nuts to keep right on appointing him when they were sharing the same roof. That would have been just too much brass neck, even for the magistrate in question.
Magistrate Herrera did give her lover appointments after they had begun their sexual relationship. Even the most cursory search on the internet should have shown Malta Today’s interviewer that.
Here’s a report from The Times of 25 April 2008 – after the last general election when during the general election campaign his sexual relationship with the magistrate was already a ‘secret issue’:
“Car Dealer Shot Dead – The police are looking for two men in connection with the coldblooded murder of car dealer Raymond Agius, 49, of Bahar ic-Caghaq, at the Butterfly Bar in Birkirkara yesterday morning…..Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera conducted an on-site inquiry. A team of court experts was appointed to help her in the inquiry. Apart from Brigadier Calleja, the team includes architect Robert Musumeci, forensic pathologist Mario Scerri and forensic expert Anthony Abela Medici.”
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I am not surprised with that reply he gave to his interviewer. I often happen to listen to his slot on RTK, and he speaks more like a lawyer than an architect.
“I don’t know much about this particular case but I would recommend that you seek professional advice on this matter.”
Does the RTK slot mean that his lifestyle is blessed by the Church?
The Church should really show magnanimity for human weaknesses, but should not (implicitly) present certain lifestyles as examples for others to follow.
It doesn’t mean that his lifestyle has the Church’s blessing, Avatar, but I hope it is noted. It seems that RTK has some sort of magnet for such people.
There’s another person who had/has a regular slot on RTK whose “personal lifestyle choices” are in severe conflict with Catholic teaching, and were so for the duration of his RTK morning programmes. Ah well, as long as one puts on a holy front, I suppose …
Madonna kemm ihobbu iwaqqaw il-gebla fuq saqajhom in-nies.
What didn’t Malta Today ask “when did you Mr Musumesci start having sexual relations with Magistrate Scerri Herrera?”
This is a relevant question.
[Daphne – Ghax ta’ Malta Today tfal li trabbew bil-Muzew u ma jitkellmux dwar is-sess, ma jmurx xi hadd jahsibhom hamalli baxxi.]
Well in that case they still could have put the question this way “when did you Mr Musumesci start having ‘a relationship’ with Magistrate Scerri Herrera?”
Thank goodness, I have never got into trouble and I have never been to court, but if (heavens forbid) I ever were to err big time and end up in court in Malta over some trivial issue, I would definitely have a field day should Miss Piggy be dealing with my case.
Why should I be ashamed of anything when you have these sorts of people with this kind of behaviour and attitude running the Maltese institutional circus?
Keep it up Daphne! Your blog is awesome.
Do 24 March, 27 April & 27 November 2008 fall in the frolicking in the sheets time-frame ?
http://johnpisani.wordpress.com/2008/03/24/jinstab-aktar-materjal-splussiv-illegali/
http://johnpisani.net/kronaka/?p=1398
http://johnpisani.wordpress.com/2008/04/27/accident-iehor-tat-traffiku-qrib-il-bombi/
Just a quicky web search.
[Daphne – Oh definitely. Ace reporters, those people at Malta Today….]
8 JULY 2009
http://www2.justice.gov.mt/kawzi/ccm_verbal.asp?FrmV=1246064&lng=
Riferenza 298/2007
Qorti Tal-Magistrati (Civili) – Malta
Ġudikatura Scerri Herrera Consuelo-Pilar
Data tas-Seduta 08/07/2009
…..f’din il-kawza u ssuggerew lil AIC ROBERT MUSUMECI
Il-Qorti tilqa’ it-talba u tordnalu ….
That’s four ‘cnagen’ so far.
Make that five.
Reno Bugeja tal-genn, jghamel ricerka intelligenti bir-reqqa li is-speakers jispiccaw ilaqalqu.
Maybe the relationship was platonic? A meeting of similar minds ?
@ Anthony Farrugia:Nahseb joqghodu jghidu r-ruzarju ma’ ta’ l-RTK
This reminds me of a scene in Il Capo dei Capi, in which the anti-Mafia magistrate asks the judges, “What is the Mafia?” and someone from the bench asks him ironically to expand on the subject. “Oh, yes” he says “let me explain…..There is a contest for a judge (or magistrate) and there are three able contestants. There is a fourth one, who is a fesso (idiot) and do you know who was chosen? Oh, the fourth one……that is the Mafia!” Let`s all open our eyes for the sake our nation, and yes, support Daphne in her fight.
@ Anthony Farrugia
One should not use the word ‘platonic’ when he surely meant ‘pathetic’!
Just can’t get away from this stuff. The WiFi that I was piggybacking on at one point today belonged to … “kermit”.