It’s not up to Malta Today and its editor to decide what electors should know about the people they elect
Saviour Balzan yesterday pronounced himself on the matter of press freedom, in his usual axe-grinding column in his newspaper Malta Today.
It’s time for a debate on what should be news and what should not be news, he wrote.
You’d think the adults of this country were his children and he is the authoritarian figure who gets to decide what’s best for them irrespective of what they think themselves.
The right of electors to know the facts about the people they elect, the people they are asked to elect, and the people who they pay through their taxes to hold high public office or to take decisions which affect the lives of electors is unquestionable and shouldn’t be questioned by a newspaper editor operating in an EU member state in 2014.
It is only when you move out of those specific categories that you can begin to question people’s right to know the facts about individuals in public life, and when privacy issues begin to emerge – though of course, in the age of the internet people often seem very keen to breach their own privacy with indiscreet displays.
Readers, viewers, listeners and audiences are very clear in their own mind that they want to know who they are voting for, what they have voted for, and what the people making the major decisions in this country are up to. The bigger those decisions, and the more prominent the role of that person in the government, the more interested they will be – not because the person is more ‘famous’ but because he has more power concentrated in his hands.
When a government colludes to make life convenient for a cabinet minister and his wife, jumping through hoops, being secretive, and placing a sizable burden on the taxpayer for years to come while refusing to explain this decision satisfactorily, electors become justifiably annoyed and more determined to find out what is going on – especially when the people doing this made so much unconscionable fuss about a 500 euros and a home-made clock worth just that not so long ago.
And that’s another reason why my post about Konrad Mizzi and his wife Sai Laing, who are apparently conducting their marriage and family life by remote control, has been shared on Facebook 21,200 times and tweeted 7,466 times so far. It has been viewed 53,436 times.
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Looking at the pic with JPO in it, I still cannot understand how pride, pique and avarice can make people flush themselves down the lavatory. Here is a man who until a few years ago was doing house visits to convince electors about EU membership, and now he is sitting at the same table with scum like Cyrus. Kif spicca.
Il-wicc tost mhux hekk biss, meta tara nies bhal Cyrus Engerer li huwa dikjarat mil-qrati bhala kriminal, jipprova jigbor il-vot taghna u jurina kemm hu ragel adattat sabiex jirraprezentana fl-aktar parlament gholi fl-Unjoni Ewropea.
Mhux hekk biss talli issa irid jurina kemm hu serju mal-partner tieghu, li fl-opinjoni tieghi qed jinqeda bih sabiex ikun jista jmur fl-Ewropa mieghu.
Incidentally what is the salary for the MCST chairman? Another way of asking how cheaply can political allegiance be bought?
All he has to do is decide what Malta Today gets to publish or not.
And no, in 2014 post Lehman Malta, people aren’t that tolerant of hedonistic relativism anymore. Decision makers who’ll insist on doing as they please when commitment was what they promised their spouse, are NOT coherent.
Berlusconi’s popularity declined incessantly the moment his wife Veronica filed for divorce and wrote a letter to La Repubblica, implying the man showed signs of mental imbalance, how he had changed.
http://www.repubblica.it/2007/01/sezioni/politica/lettera-veronica/lettera-veronica/lettera-veronica.html
La Repubblica was notoriously anti-Cavaliere.
How times change, Saviour, but then, you’re still stuck in 2001, negatively impressed by the incidents at the Diaz state secondary school in Genoa.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/01/world/europe/01italy.html?_r=0
Italia spaghetti mandolino if you please.
Using the same yardstick, we should also debate who’s fit to become a newspaper editor and which individuals should be allowed to set up a printing press?
Balzan wants to discuss who can have a blog and who gets to tweet.
Set up and “administer,” in the case of The Times of Malta.
Perhaps it’s also time to ask why our minister for EU affairs isn’t delivering anything at all.
There’s at least a billion euros at risk.
I wonder if it isn’t on purpose, so that then Joseph can say “the EU is not delivering anything to us, so let’s leave it”.
Considering that the only project known so far is the restoration of the PM’s official residence to the tune of €1m, when it was already restored a few years ago with public funds, one can assume that they have absolutely no idea of how to go about using those funds.
How can they be expected to deliver? This is a clan which was and still is vehemently anti-Europe.
It’s like telling a pro-life activist to set up client appointments at an abortion clinic.
My philosophy is if you cannot trust a person to act responsibly in his private life how can one expect him to act responsibly in his public life.
If a politician cannot apply basic moral standards to his private life, how can the electorate expect him to act in a morally correct manner in his public life.
A politician who cannot live up to his commitments in his private life will not be bothered about failing in his commitments (read electoral promises) in his public life.
So now His Master’s Voice is saying that what was published was news and not lies.
What goes around comes around, they say. But Konrad doesn’t like it now that it’s coming around.
One of the main democratic principles of such republics as the United States and the United Kingdom is a clear separation between the press and the state.
It seems that Saviour Balzan wants a different model, one that eschews democracy and the basic right to the freedom of speech and to opinion (as its direct corollary).
His position reflects a broader malaise: that of a lack of critical thinking skills and the suppression of any form of critique (read admonishment) unless it comes from people in authority. And, it demonstrates a basic lack of knowledge and understanding of democratic principles among members of the public (educators please note). While we do not choose our parents, we certainly do choose those who represent us as a governing body.
Democracy, like religion, is not a menu from which we pick and choose principles that we like and reject those which we dislike. You either follow a democratic model or you don’t.
Saviour Balzan should have constructed a logical argument for not accepting Daphne’s analyses and opinions without introducing the need for some mechanism that axes democratic principle’s. It is well within his right to disagree and offer an alternative analysis and opinion.
In addition, Balzan also needs to consider whether, in future, he would be exempt from falling victim to his own axe ? If government curbs the rights of one legitimate journalist, then it can curb the rights of all or allow only a different form of journalism altogether.
Democracy protects us from the manipulative mechanisms that Balzan wants to introduce.
As an elector I also want to know why a candidate hides € 500,000 under his bed.
Excellent news. The fans of Joseph Muscrat and Konrat Mizzi can now join a society which almost seems to have been designed with them in mind.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20141110/letters/A-society-for-rodent-lovers.543368
I think the switchers deserve free membership.
Il-kaz ta’ Francois Hollande u ta’ Bill Clinton mhux id-dinja kollha saret taf bihom.
Jien qed nistenna l-kaz jibda fil-qorti, biex nkunu nafu fejni Mrs Mizzi qeghda u x’inhu x-xoghol taghha.
Kull ma nafu s’issa, kemm ghanda paga.
Two guesses why our Saviour just posted a viciously scathing attack on Inspector Angelo Gafa.
I worked with this man, a gentleman, a thorough investigator and totally apolitical.
Shits like Balzan should emulate Gafa’s integrity, objectivity and professionalism. Only then might he possibly be in a position to criticize.
What an absolute wanker Balzan is.
The latest editorial reads like the transcript of how he would have loved the questioning to be, answers fitting his paranoia.
If only he realised how predictable he’s become, hey Raphael, pass it round will you? .
Gaffata wara l-ohra, Salv. L-ipokresija tieghek qed tohrog fil-berah, naqra naqra.
I hate people without balls especially those who like to pose like they’ve got elephant-sized attributes e.g. Saviour Balzan.
It’s time you too come out of the closet, Salv. In case you haven’t yet realised everybody (especially Labourites like you) has a right to express his or her opinion, so you needn’t fret about it.
Seems like everybody knows what you stand for by now, except you.
The reason why they don’t want us to know about their private life is proof that they know it will leave a negative effect on the way the electorate votes.
When I see these pictures I just weep and scream. look who we are paying with our hard earned money. These people were not even elected but imposed on us by this meritocratic government.