Is the prime minister also ‘angry and disgusted’ at his men who lied and spun fiction for the press?
Had it not been for the eyewitness accounts that went up immediately on Malta Right Now and this website last night, the only information the public would have had about the evening’s main event was that the lies fed to the newspapers by government sources and then more formally by a government press release.
And the whole of Malta would have woken up to the story that a drunken Scot crashed into Manuel Mallia’s car and sped on, leaving a trail of wreckage, but his driver bravely gave chase, shooting into the air, until the man was cornered in a nearby tunnel and carted away.
The big mystery is why the government released its lies to Times of Malta, TVM and the rest when those eyewitness accounts had already gone up here and on Malta Right Now. You know what? I suspect it’s because the government’s spin doctors hadn’t seen them.
They wouldn’t have gone looking at Malta Right Now, and they insist on making a virtue out of not reading this website unless they absolutely must. And as a result, look what happened. THEY RELEASED LIES BECAUSE THEY DIDN’T KNOW THE TRUTH WAS OUT HERE AND ON MALTA RIGHT NOW ALREADY.
And within hours, even Times of Malta had begun to work out that the government had fed it a bunch of lies. Its videographer, who was on site in the tunnel, had homed in on the bullet holes in the rear of the car. Those bullet holes were unmistakable. The shots were not fired into the air but straight into the back of a retreating car.
Then the rest of the media had to deal with another uncomfortable fact: would Malta Right Now have invented an eyewitness account? Would I have done that? An eyewitness account is very specific. It has to be the truth.
By this morning, Manuel Mallia’s bottom was fried.
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No he is angry that they were caught, feigning disgust.
Joseph Muscat does not know how to express any emotions other than those a spoilt egoistic child would – anger, pique …
Otherwise he tries to mirror the emotions of others, often not that successfully.
This tells you a lot about Times of Malta as well – how eager they are to spread the lies and act as a medium for the government’s spinning, without even questioning anything.
Unfortunately we have been seeing that for quite some time now.
Very true
Times of Malta is infiltrated. Remember the instructions Muscat gave to that journalist not to move there from RTK because he was sorted and needed her where she was?
This will be the next step
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2816118/Kim-song-gun-Jong-military-official-shot-firing-squad-changed-words-socialist-anthem-performed-karaoke.html
But there is little hope that his chair will become a hot seat however fried his ass is.
This government has not retracted anything of its blunders and is ready to sit it out hoping the electorate will be forgiving or understanding – in their minds it wasn’t the minister that lifted the firearm and the ministry is not an extension of the minister.
I hate to imagine what would have happened to the Scotman had there not been any eye-witnesses.
It could have been you or me, without the British High Commission’s support.
Amateur night at the Gaiety Theatre.
Where is the British man now? Has he been released? Will he be giving his version of events?
He has no idea how lucky he is. Pre-internet days, he’d have ended up dead in Qormi valley amongst the bananas.
If he has been released, it should now be possible for the British High Commission to answer that question specifically.
I take it that once the man is no longer in police custody; it is not against the law quoted by the High Commission to reveal the facts about that British citizen.
Can some journalist follow up with the High Commissioner?
[Daphne – Steve Morrison Smith is still locked up.]
No wonder the car was on the police trailer within minutes of the incident, ready to be towed away even before the magistrate could undertake a proper on the scene investigation.
It would have been an October 1979 when we were fed that a man went into Castille and tried to kill Mintoff had it not been for eyewitness accounts and at least two portals carrying the truth.
I’m not sure I agree with you there.
It seems like they did not realise that the bullet holes were visible in the photographs that the Press had in the few minutes before the car was carted away.
It was the photos that gave credibility to the eyewitness account and completely belied the “warning shots in the air” statement.
They always feed Times of Malta first because they know that they would publish news like this immediately without making one plus one.
When Times of Malta realise that they made a mistake they do not delete it but they beat around the bush. Case in point they still consider the incident as a hit and run.
They are probably wracking their brains to find some kind of horror story that can be attributed to the former Gonzi administration to deflect attention from this sorry saga long enough for it to be lost in time and forgotten.
just as this story seems to be diverting everyone’s attention from the Non-budget last Monday.
Being ‘angry and disgusted’ just doesn’t cut it.
Many Maltese are ‘angry and disgusted’ with this government but they still have to put up with it for a couple more years at least.
Actions is needed on both counts.
Looking at the damage this has done, the Brit is not out of the woods yet. Don’t you think that there are mechanisms right now whizzing and whirring, trying to redeem the government?
Sometimes I still think that inspite of all that is going on most still refuse to believe what we are back to. Many say it but don’t act as if it has sunk in.
The credibility of the government and its spin doctors is in tatters.
Nobody believes a word they say any more.
You say that:
“And the whole of Malta would have woken up to the story that a drunken Scot crashed into Manuel Mallia’s car and sped on, leaving a trail of wreckage, but his driver bravely gave chase, shooting into the air, until the man was cornered in a nearby tunnel and carted away.”
I would add also that the prime minister would have nominated Mr. Sheehan for the Gieh ir-Repubblika for the sterling service rendered in defending the integrity of the wing mirror on the minister’s car and for making that barrani smell the coffee.
Thank God for MaltaRightNow and your website Daphne, otherwise, as you said, the public would have been fed a bunch of lies on this particular story.
Well I, my family and friends have long stopped reading Times of Malta. It has become a farce. I hear most people saying it is unreliable. How sad.
Is this a perception of an attempted murder committed by the driver of the minister of defence?
I guess it is like the traffic on the roads, power station timeline, ministers doing illegal construction, unemployment, meritocracy etc. Welcome on board switchers.
Media is reporting that the PM said “Manuel Mallia was neither on site nor did he give any instructions to driver”.
So is Prime Minister Joseph Muscat saying that he does not believe in political responsibility?
Must a minister be physically present or perpetrate the act himself to be responsible for a wrongdoing?
Seeing how he acted on the Helena Dalli case it certainly seems that way.
Good luck Malta!
Many people have long realised that Times of Malta has become a PR outlet for the Labour Party and now the Labour government, and this not because of deliberate editorial policy but because of the Labour Party’s contacts with certain influential journalists there.
The net result is that the newspaper’s general coverage of stories is extremely superficial, verging on irresponsibility towards readers, and the efforts of a few journalists in that newsroom to doggedly persist in chasing up their own stories are now in stark contrast to the rest.
There is no uniformity: what you have is the occasional excellent story which you just know a journalist (always the same ones) has followed up on his or her own initiative and persisted with, in a sea of bland indifference.