Why has somebody at Times of Malta doctored the heading of a Reuters article to include the word ‘passports’ where Reuters did not?

Published: November 19, 2013 at 12:45am

Reuters original

Times of Malta version

Times of Malta has a subscription (like many hundreds of news organisations the world over – that’s how Reuters lives) to Reuters which permits it to reproduce and relay Reuters reports as its own content.

But in this case, it has included the word ‘passports’ in the headline where Reuters did not. This – possibly inadvertently – gives the impression that others in Europe are selling passports, which is not the case.




15 Comments Comment

  1. ciccio says:

    It’s not just the heading. The word “passport” does not feature anywhere in the Reuters report. Massive.

  2. Nighthawk says:

    The moderators are also repeatedly censoring comments. If you post something stupid and without substance it gets through.

    But if you post a reasoned rebuttal of one of those posts, you invariably don’t get through. If you post it ten times, and then then maybe on the tenth, preface it with a little lecture about the Times’ pro-Labour bias and ask what it owes Labour and whether you should check with Times management/directors if indeed this censorship and bias is official editorial policy, your comment makes it through – without the preface, of course.

    So at least one moderator at the Times is guilty of actively censoring comments in favour of the Labour Party, and clearly without the consent of management, which is doing a pretty sloppy job of managing its objectivity.

    The editorials have improved, but the rest of the paper clearly hasn’t.

    • Bubu says:

      Last time I posted on the Times the comment length limit was so small that you could hardly make a coherent point, let alone insert lectures about ethical standards.

  3. Alexander Ball says:

    The Times building was torched and ransacked.

    The people who did it are roaming free.

    Can you blame them?

  4. bryan says:

    Times of Malta has become a nest of Labour Party sympathisers.

  5. Robert Barathian says:

    Since the age of nine or ten I have read The Times religiously every day. I bought it first thing in the morning for my English grandfather who used to give me three pence for the trouble.

    My father followed his father’s custom of reading that newspaper and in the evening, after recreation and homework, I would take it up and read it too.

    Admittedly, I usually started with the sports section first but gradually ended up scrutinizing all the pages.

    This went on for many, many years until we got to the months before the last elections. Things started to change and slowly but surely, for reasons beyond my imagination, this newspaper transformed itself into a PL portal.

    For many years, the PL had been trying to create a newspaper in the English language without success. Suddenly they had one ready made.

    There is much speculation as to why The Times has become a PL apologist and I’m sure that one day we will know the reason. I have stopped buying and reading The Times for over a year now and like me I know of many. Pity.

    But as the saying goes, nearly everyone and everything has a price and it seems that The Times is no exception. In the light of the above, I think that the following words from an old favourite song are very fitting…..”and the times, they are a changing”.

    • Andy says:

      I have also stopped buying that new Labour daily, Times of Malta. They have done the stupidest thing possible: alienate their real readers to keep the elves happy, when elves don’t spend money on newspapers and even less money on the things that are advertised in them.

      News items of major importance, frequently mentioned on this website, went unmentioned in Times of Malta, quite as if they never happened. Just like Super 2 Television. Sorry, I meant PBS.

  6. Watchful eye says:

    It is no longer the Times of Malta.

    It has now become the Times of Malta Labour Party.

  7. Newman says:

    Robert,

    My thoughts and feelings exactly. The Malta Independent should seize this opportunity and redouble their efforts. I hear a lot of complaints that The Times has sold out to the Labour Party.

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