L-Orizzont has a madly jealous hissy fit, and its scrofulous editor still can’t bring himself to mention my name even as he asks who will rid him of this turbulent woman

Published: April 12, 2014 at 2:31am

L-Orizzont 12 April 2014

With all this going on the country, L-Orizzont chose to dedicate its leading article yesterday to the subject of this blog – or rather to ‘dik il-persuna’ who writes it.

I am not of any significance, but at the same time, all their readers, even those who can’t read English and so have never read anything I have written, are expected to know who it is they are talking about, so they feel they needn’t mention my name.

Because, you know, it’s just like with the Bogeyman: if you say his name out loud, he materialises in your living-room and gobbles up your supper.

The backward peasant who wrote this – as it is the editorial piece, I am assuming it is L-Orizzont’s scrofulous editor – is straight out of another era, when people could be silenced for saying things that are not to other people’s liking even though their right to say them is protected at law.

Up until last year, their boring, antediluvian refrain was that the government should silence me, and given that the government does not silence me, then the government is in league with me, paying me and backing me up.

Now that the government is led by Joseph Muscat and I am still writing this blog, they are perplexed as to what argument to use. Does this mean that Muscat’s government is in league with me, paying me and backing me up, even as I attack (presumably with a chainsaw covered in ‘odju u hdura’) poor innocents like Mrs Muscat and those shrinking violets, Faberge Eggs Mallia and Land Rover Pullicino Orlando?

The people who think that way haven’t yet cottoned on to the fact that Malta is no longer an isolated Mintoffian bubble but part of the larger world, in which the rules and principles of the larger world apply.

My advice to L-Orizzont’s hopelessly inept editor is that he stops reading his own newspaper and picks up something published in any other European Union member state, or visits the internet.

Then he could usefully pop a couple of happy pills and stop obsessing about this website – because it really is an obsession. When you can’t even bring yourself to mention a person’s name even as you dedicate an entire leading article to the subject of her, you are the one with the problem, and that problem is pathological.

Mockery and criticism of politicians and those around them is not a problem. The absence of it is. And I am pretty sure that nobody in Malta who lived through those years wishes to revisit them – no, not even L-Orizzont’s scrofulous editor, whatever he might say.




35 Comments Comment

  1. Jozef says:

    He’s right about the ‘bassara tal-mibgheda’ capability, you never failed to foresee their hate.

    How absolutely dramatic, pathetic and….Savonarolic.

    And my question is, who dare close down this blog?

  2. P Shaw says:

    It seems that now that the MLP controls (not through shareholding), directly or indirectly, the Times and Malta Today, they are still not happy and are asking for boycott or control of the Malta Independent.

    What is next? Blockage of certain internet sites, in the way their friend Putin or the Chinese are good at?

  3. kev says:

    They are right on at least one thing. When you get the Leader of the Opposition obsessively seeking guidance from this blog you know he’s lacking ideas. It’s one thing to have Bondi+, Salvu Today or the Times of Gahan do it. But the PN kapo?

    • Jozef says:

      What do you think of Alleanza Bidla?

      • kev says:

        I think it’s a very good idea to call it ‘Alleanza’ for, as we know, every voter starts from the very top of the ballot sheet. We’ve seen it happen. They all get thousands of extra votes. Remember Abacus? Sure winner. How can you beat Abacus?

        As for ‘Bidla’ – a ‘B’ is not a bad bet. It beats Alleanza Liberali – and that’s crucial – but they’re bound to get shafted if someone comes up with Alleanza Alternattiva.

        I hope that answers your question, Jozef.

      • H.P. Baxxter says:

        If I ever form a party (for none of the existing ones will take me) I’ll call it Aardvark Action Alliance.

    • H.P. Baxxter says:

      How exactly is Simon Busuttil seeking guidance from this blog? On all the important issues discussed here, he was in disagreement with Daphne:

      1. He supported Marie Louise Coleiro’s nomination.

      2. He appeared on Xarabank.

      3. He supported the Mintoff monument.

      4. He took part in the President’s ‘coronation’ ceremony.

      5. He backed down on the issue of the sale of passports.

    • U leeee says:

      If I were a betting man, I’d wager that you have a DCG fetish. She’s one you love to hate and hate to love.

  4. albona says:

    Looks like you, and your followers too presumably, are just bad apples that need discarding asap.

    Are they going to send the strongmen around to 40.000ish homes across the islands?

  5. Tabatha White says:

    With the clear and resolute position you took from the outset over the past three weeks in the Erin Tanti case, which position – despite the confusion abounding – was the absolute right one from the start, L-Orizzont’s sudden reaction in this editorial would reflect Labour’s fear that you are succeeding in driving a wedge into their otherwise successful marketing of warped thinking: their only hook with the electorate.

    Alexa reflects the sounder back-up for the basis of this fear.

    Once the realisation sinks in of just how right you have been on the issue of Erin Tanti, it is going to get people to challenge and call into question other statements issued by the press and especially those by the Labour spin machine that has been dead set against you, and they are entirely conscious of this.

    I think we have just witnessed a very painful fissure of realisation and understanding.

    Tone and discipline have nothing to do with not caring. In fact they have everything to do with the precision of caring for the good of all of society.

    What an infantile and incomplete notion L-Orizzont nurtures of the role of the press.

    The press has a responsibility to serve its readers with a no-nonsense charter of values.

    Daphne is the only rated representative of the press in Malta that has an unswerving, lucid, deep-rooted sense of what these are and is eloquent with it.

    Emotion has nothing to do with what is delivered.

    Precision does.

    I don’t think they want their readers to realise the difference.

  6. Joe Micallef says:

    If there was any doubt this piece shows that, a year on, the MLP lambada is taking on water from multiple cracks.

    Despite rehearsing their staged government for months, they failed to consider the power of social media – the last time they ruined this country the medium didn’t exist.

  7. dutchie says:

    The only bad apple in the basket is the Labour Party, whether in opposition or in government, to mention a couple of examples:

    1. their scheming to undermine freedom of expression in Malta;

    2. the hidden IIP scheme;

    3. all that fictitious fuss about the “cancer factory” just to push their own hidden agenda;

    4. the whole Arriva attack right from the start to the end;

    5. the re-centralisation of powers: all decisions great and small to be taken by the cabinet ministers, etc.

    The writeup should be about how the last good apples must be saved out of one terribly rotting container.

  8. Francis Saliba M.D. says:

    “SHE” who must not be named – only feared for her journalist competence when others fumble in the dark striving to learn some basics so to acquire some credibility..

  9. anthony says:

    May the bojkott socjali start anon.

    I am sure Daphne will sorely miss the invites from the Princesa de Asturias to the haj sauceity does at the Palacio Real and at the Escorial in Girgenti.

  10. Gahan says:

    Minn fejn naqbad nibda?

    Jekk m’intix ġurnalista għaliex għandu jinkwieta? Għas-safa tal-ġurnaliżmu Malti?

    Min hu barra, barra, u min hu ġewwa, ġewwa. Skond dan l-editur int qiegħeda barra imma jrid ikeċċik. Naħseb li fxiltul waħda u sew.

    Dan il-mifxul qisu ġab l-argument li Daphne qiegħedha tgħin lil-PN filwaqt li hija mażżra m’għonq il-PN! Ħawwadni ħa nifhmek.

    U fl-aħħar tal-mazzita sibna ż-żbiba. Dan l-editur tal-gażżetta li trid ħafna ġid lil-PN, u li hija xempju ħaj ta’ kif tista’ tattakka lil-avversarju politiku mingħajr ma tixħet tajn u taqla’ l-libelli wieħed f’wieħed, qiegħed jitlob li Daphne tkun dikkjarata “persona non grata” għax hi qed tħammeġ ‘il-ġurnaliżmu Malti u tfixkell lil-PN milli jirbaħ xi elezzjoni.

    U jekk jiddikkjarawk “persona non grata” nista’ nkun naf min se jixtri l-gazzetta nhar ta’ Ħadd? Nista’ nkun naf kif se jwaqqfuk milli tikteb?

    Iċ-Ċina għandhom “The Great Firewall of China” dan l-editur irid xi “The Victoria Lines firewall of Malta”?

  11. Last Post says:

    Sewwa jghid il-qawl Malti: ‘Biex tiskongra trid tkun pur.’ Insewh zmienhom tal-Union Press – iz-zmien tax-‘Xewka’?

    Illum qed tigihom reqqa li xi hadd jikkritika u jwaqqa’ ghac-cajt lill-awtoritajiet?

    Kienet tiftahar tant ix-Xewka li ghaliha m’hemmx ‘baqar sagri’!

  12. observer says:

    Sorry, but I could not bring myself to read your extract from l-Orizzont,

    As Virgil said to Dante “Non ragionam di lor, ma guarda e passa”.

    I did just that – guardai without bothering any futher.

  13. Natalie says:

    What do you think about the ‘mimlija b’ghira grassa ghal ghajrha’?

    I found that hilarious. As if one could be jealous of the backward, cheap and uncultured chavs liaising with criminals that make up the Labour Party. They’re all ‘in’ to grab as much as they can ghax issa l-gvern taghna hi.

    They expect you to be jealous. As I said, hilarious.

  14. Victor says:

    What journalists is he on about, the copy and paste ones, or perhaps the cookie ones? What a pea brain.

    Keep up your sterling work, Daphne. If it weren’t for you, we would never learn what is going on and that is the reason why their little brains tell them that they have to get rid of you.

  15. C C says:

    X’ gurnalisti hawn Malta? Dawk li jkunu f’ kull konferenza stampa hu mhumiex kapaci isaqsu domandi challenging, u li jistaqsu ghall-cookies minflok?

    Dawk reporters jissejhu u xejn iktar. Gurnalismu hu dak li juri l-fatti anke jekk hemm min ma jogbux il-verita.

  16. CIS says:

    L-Orizzont is best used for lining the parrot’s cage.

  17. Gladio says:

    L-Orizzont and it-Torca are the champions of trash journalism. Joseph Muscat conferred Gieh il-Republika to a former editor of ix-Xewka Lino Cassar that was also published by GWU. GWU journalists are a bunch of trash collectors.

  18. M. Cassar says:

    Tsk, tsk Ms Caruana Galizia, from now on you should wait for government press releases, publish those and not comment in any way. How dare you have a brain.

    Forget that ‘journalism’ for the democratic world does NOT mean the government’s mouthpiece, a glorified parrot, a ventriloquist’s puppet.

    It would be better if the author of that enlightened piece does not get to know how many people visit this blog to get to know of the connections between people and things, which explain so much these days, because he would have even more to ramble about.

    Let me assure him/her that ‘did you read Daphne?’, ‘has Daphne come back?’ are very, very frequent comments.

    Concern is expressed whenever there is a lull in postings even as we reassure each other that everyone deserves a break, even Ms DCG.

    When the self-proclaimed speakers of the truth fall, one after the other, either silenced or sorry shadows of their previous selves, at the side of some sorry idiot, taking cues from him and keeping their heads low least it is chopped off, the only person who has the courage to say that the emperor is naked is very precious indeed.

    It is significant that the author of the editorial attacked you personally, but did not disprove any of your articles. So thank you, Ms DCG.

  19. Giraffa says:

    Seems to me that the article was written having received orders from the Auberge de Castille. The editor of L-Orizzont should know that the readers of his bin-liner rag represent the lowest scum of the island, and the rest will keep on following Daphne’s blog even if his fascist government tries to run it underground.

  20. Joe Fenech says:

    Alias “don’t interfere in our dodgy business”

    Mad, corrupt, insular pea-brains.

  21. il-Ginger says:

    Cowards

  22. Timon of Athens says:

    I once read a quote ” Hatred is an acid that does a great deal more damage to the vessel in which it is stored than the object on which it is poured”. So true.

    [Daphne – It’s not true at all. Vessels in which acid is stored are purpose-built and acid-resistant. The same can’t be said of the things and people on which acid is poured. People who hate tend to hate on and on and on and are always out to get you or undermine you in whatever way they can.]

  23. mf says:

    Darba Dr. Gorg Borg Olivier kien mistoqsi kif qatt ma jgħid xejn fuq dak li jinkiteb fuqu fil-gazzetti Laburisti.

    It-twieġiba kienet fis-sens ta’ “Ma narax għalfejn meta nkun miexi lejn ix-xogħol (kien imur il-parlament bil-mixi) għandi noqod inħares go t-tankijiet taż-zibel li jkun hemm fuq il-bankini”.

  24. Nik says:

    Clear proof (if ever it was needed) that they have no idea how to deal with you. They wouldn’t know what journalism is if it jumped out at them and smacked them in the face. Amateurs, the lot of them.

  25. H.P. Baxxter says:

    I tried repeating Daphne’s full name and surname three times in a clear voice, with my hands over my tablet, open at this website, thumbs and fingers touching to form a mystical triangle. Daphne failed to materialise at my breakfast table. Am I doing something wrong?

  26. ciccio says:

    Since when is L-Orizzont giving lessons on free and ethical journalism?

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