The press – cheaply bought with a few biscuits and flirtatious tweets
Kurt Farrugia – he’s not there to give the press cookies. He’s there to give the press information.
I couldn’t help thinking yesterday – are those reporters out of their minds? There they were, packed outside the gate to Girgenti Palace which had been slammed shut in their faces, tweeting complaints about how hungry they were and then tweeting flirtatious thanks when that poison dwarf who was part of their press pack only a couple of years ago sent out a tray of what he calls ‘cookies’.
The tone and exchange were all wrong. Instead of discussing ‘cookies’ with the chief of government communications via Twitter like inane teenagers and admiring his uploads of ‘blue skies at Girgenti’, they should have been ringing his phone relentlessly and demanding to know the answers to some proper questions.
Instead, we had a let’s-flirt-with-Kurt session with everyone outdoing themselves to stay light and ‘positive’ with chatty tweets and talk about ruddy biscuits.
And I know from experience that when that happens, the pack isn’t only controlled but it also controls itself and its members. Anybody there who knew his job and was predisposed to put a rocket under the Cookie Midget, reminding him what his job is, until he got some proper answers, would have kept quiet and wondered if maybe, just maybe, there was something wrong with him rather than something seriously wrong with the other members of the pack.
They don’t even seem to realise that within the pack itself, they are among rivals and not friends and should behave accordingly. If all the other reporters are content to sit about waiting for Kurt’s biscuits, they should take advantage of that and go get the story themselves.
To hell with the rest of the biscuit-eating pack if they think you’re an antipatiku/a or not ‘one of us’ or ‘ajma, typical’ if you refuse to behave like you’re on a school outing and instead choose to remember that not only do you have a duty to your readers but you also work for a rival organisation and that the other members of the press pack are not your colleagues but your competitors.
But in Malta, we like to be accepted by the group, and that is the most important thing – being accepted by the group, moving like a herd of sheep with the rest of the press, is more important than telling Kurt Farrugia where to stuff his biscuits and get his boss out of there to answer some questions.
Reporters are being treated by this government like compliant and grateful dogs because that is exactly how they are behaving. If you are being cheated and avoided, why collaborate with the politicians and their aides who are cheating and avoiding you? Did it not even occur to the massed pack exactly WHY the prime minister had those meeting at Girgenti Palace and not at the Auberge de Castille as he should have done, and as prime ministers always do in these situations?
Simple: Girgenti Palace has a drive with a gate at the end of it. All the cabinet members summoned to meetings had obviously been instructed to drive right in with their windows up. That is exactly what they did. That way, they have no contact at all with the press.
At the Auberge de Castille, they can’t do this and must walk right up the steps lined with reporters and photographers. There is no knowing what might happen in that situation. Even if they have strict instructions not to answer, sometimes a bit of footage with an awkward question, and a minister refusing to answer it, is enough.
That is exactly why Godfrey Farrugia was the only one not to drive in: he was deliberately disobeying orders and making a point of walking in and back out again to face the press. He even had Marlene Farrugia wait in the car at a considerable distance, so that he would have a good, long walk in which to make a show. Even if he refused to answer questions, he wanted to make a statement of being filmed, of showing his anger.
Unfortunately, the press asked him the wrong questions, focussing on whether Godfrey Farrugia thinks he failed when they should have asked him not about his own performance but about the prime minister’s.
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Why does that photo of Kurt Farrugia remind me of this?
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2011/06/cookie-monster-on-phone.jpg
I really had to laugh out loud when I read your comment. For a large number of years a number of people I know have called Joseph Muscat the honey monster.
You know, the mouth, the elegant movements (!), the sugared pill attitude, the flat face etc. Now you mention this and suddenly I get a vision of such a pair.
Reading the above, apart from feeling very disappointed with what goes on between Kurt Farrugia and the press, also made me ask a question:
Is it time that journalists obtain a warrant to start respecting the profession?
[Daphne – Of course not! Journalists are the last people on earth who should be required to have permission from the state to do their job. Imagine the scenario.]
The Maltese press with a very few exceptions , maybe two, have no idea what being a press reporter is.
They are supposy to a Sherlock Holmes , Piorot , rolled in one asking straight questions were it hurts and not taking cookies to behave.
What crowd of infantiles.
Who’s the second exception?
Lou Bondi? – guffaw
Let’s face it, there is no one of the calibre of Lou Bondi out there.
The fact that he lacks principles and is so easily bought does nothing to diminish his journalistic capabilities.
This is something Joe Muscat realised very early in the day and in truth it has cost him next to nothing.
This is part of an interview held with Joseph Muscat on Bondiplus and aired six years ago on the 31st March 2008.
Listen to Muscat’s parting shot.
Look at Lou Bondi’s body language. His discomfort.
At the time I felt that there was a done deal somewhere and time proved that I had probably read the situation correctly.
Moreover, Joseph’s cynical remark is so typical of the man particularly when he knows something that you don’t.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5ktH17A5d0
‘Tis well said, but wha daur bell the cat?’
Do these cookie-eating reporters work for News Corp? Seemingly enough we have the same breed of reporters in Australia.
The very fact that our “journalists” choose to ignore or downplay serious news stories creates the greatest form of censorship in Malta.
Although there are still a few free thinking and independent “journalists”, most of the others could be human-like robots, who can do little more than read from approved scripts issued by the OPM’s communication office.
Those reporters were treated like dogs. Every now and then, the masters threw them some cookies to make them stop whining, barking and showing their teeth.
When exactly is the media going to realise who their true clients are and what those clients’ needs are?
And like dogs, they lapped up the cookies and wagged their tails.
Shameful!
Not only they wagged their tails, some of the questions put to Godfrey Farrugia seemed planted and were intended to humiliate him.
I agree. Who was the reporter asking that question?
This is shocking. The more I read the more concerned I am about the faith of our country.
How can the switchers not have realized that they were releasing a monster with their votes. You are spot on when saying that is why Girgenti was chosen. The fact that he did so says so much of his underhanded way of manipulating those around him.
The cookie monster
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhUFxaauNTE
“But in Malta, we like to be accepted by the group, and that is the most important thing – being accepted by the group, moving like a herd of sheep with the rest of the press”
In Malta, idea creation, definition and approval certainly needs to happen in a group. By reference to the majority that made up the Malta Taghna movement, this prevalent thinking is why ground-breaking new ideas in Malta go nowhere, unless it fits the group values. The one with a “crafty” idea will not discuss it. Therefore the expression: “mutu, mutu qrunu f’butu.” Was the IIP discussed before Malta Taghna? No. It would never have obtained group approval and they knew it.
This is very Italian in nature: the members of a group, all needing to fit in to have an identity, each one with a role that can be referred to, play a containment role in making each one feel important in his sphere of interest/fun-jibe potential. There is the funny guy, the clever one, the elegant one etc. New and different ideas find little genuinely fertile ground.
Everyone is open about everything, the topics are rendered superficial, sports like football are glorified for the euphoric highs and lows created, and one is groomed to stay within the accepted parametres. This is ideal for control of the masses.
In the UK will the group really say what it really thinks? The eccentric is a British invention and essential for new idea development and generation. One doesn’t reveal the full extent of the new idea but goes on to develop it independently. Having an informed different opinion has a value. It adds interest. As long as it is class specific. Over stepping a class is what led to the expression: too clever “by half:” that’s half a class they’re talking about. One enquires around for the different input before final autonomous definition and development of one’s idea. One talks about it if one must once it’s a success. The eccentric operates freely outside the class system.
The US has a history of a plethora of ideas patented. Lots of open talk and free discussion in the development of these. One develops ideas off the back of others. Not all of them are successful, but the creation energy is there. The failure culture is different.
In Japan, they will carefully study new ideas but only develop the one or two out of ten that they are sure will be successful. This is reflective of the social structure too.
In Germany flippant ideas aren’t what take the system forward. The mentality is that the professional are best suited to produce quality ideas and therefore the stress is on the quality of ideas and the quality of the workforce at all levels: The quality of decisions and thinking. The socio-cultural and economic hive of activity is entirely supportive of this fundamental premise.
For starters, it’s impossible for a tiny community intellectually cut off from the world to develop anything original.
Add to that the Maltese sense of self-importance* and you get a gelified terrine of rehashed everything.
Independence just made it worse. But let’s not get started.
*It goes something like this: L-eqdem tempji fid-dinja – San Pawl – Malta ssalva d-dinja fl-Assedju – Ic-Centru tal-Bahar Nofsani – Malta terga’ ssalva d-dinja fit-Tieni Gwerra (anke jekk tort tal-Barrani) – Malta tikseb il-Helsien – Malta l-aqwa fl-Ewropa – Malta globali.
Gahwra fil-Mediterran, gotbless. Abitata minn nies hawtiela, l-irgiel qalbiena, mibrubin u mibnija saffejn, in-nisa l-ghaxqa ta’ zewghom, ghajnejhom zoroq u hugbejhom folti. Fuq kollox, titbissem xemx hanina li ssajjar il-frott bnin. Gotbless ghal darbtejn.
Loved your analysis.
Here in Malta, the only place where we can explore new ideas is Daphne’s website.
Here the group is allowed to express itself freely, and the different views seem to evolve into a better understanding of the issue in hand. The same subject is explored from various angles, some more serious than others.