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As journalists we take it upon ourselves to screen the establishment, the administration, the politicians and we relish every minute of it. Others pretend to do it. It would not be me, would it if the yearly event to award prizes to Maltese journalists passes unnoticed.
Before I indulge myself in undressing the characters of this week, allow me to declare that I am not a member of the Press Club. Indeed many other prominent journalists share my status of being misrepresented. Therefore bear with my prejudice.
A cursory look at the winners of this year’s event reveals that an overwhelming number of winners are either journalists with The Times or else hold official posts on the committee of the Press Club. Some of them deserve tonnes of praise for their contributions, others not.
But as time flies, the awards ceremony is looking more like the lonely hearts clubs band indulging in sycophantic rituals.
To oversee the 'Golden' prize for the journalist with a ‘golden’ history in journalism, we watched as President emeritus Guido De Marco, who as a prominent personality well entrenched with The Times and the chairman of the Strickland Foundation, awarded the prize to a former editor of … The Times a certain Mr Grech Orr.
Now, I have been told to be polite, avoid using language which ridicules and avoid stirring up unwarranted mud.
But if the Press Club awards are not a case for a Monty Python remake series, what is?
I sincerely believe that The Times have come a long way from the bizarre editorial approach of the pre-nineties. Yet, just in case everyone has forgotten, The Times of the Grech Orr era was not only renowned for spelling Valletta with one l. it was personified for carrying foreign news on the front page and relegating hard core local news to the B pages.
If it was Mintoff’s ugly policies, bombs exploding behind people’s doors, violence in the street, illegal incarceration, political patronage, police brutality or Mintoffian arrogance it would somehow never find its way to the front pages. Most of the time, the front page regaled us with the Queen and her doggies, a Nimrod landing at Luqa or the visit of some irrelevant British military man who happened to parachute over Island Malta.
My perception of The Times was fortified by the eighties... I cannot erase and forget demonstrations organised by myself together with others was given a well-orchestrated beating by Labourite thugs.
The story naturally found its way to the front page of il-Mument, but only got into The Times, days later somewhere… in the classified pages. Mr Grech Orr the Editor was not only conservative, he was cautious to the point that even reporting violent acts on a bunch of young upstarts was considered ‘daring.’
And talking to Grech Orr at the time was like communicating with the Grand Duke of Luxembourg. It was an impossible task, he was simply not available.
At least The Times got the story on a B page, the MaltaNews published by the GWU headed by a certain Joe Vella who is the secretary of the Press Club went further. He had the gall to carry a news story that the young protestors had provoked and attacked the workers. Thankfully, the Malta News is no longer with us.
The Times is today a very relevant newspaper, it is in itself, a monument to the other media and an integral part of the Maltese psyche.
If The Times is relevant, the Press Club is sadly not.
The latter has changed its name to an Institute, which is probably more appropriate, since Institutes are more suited for talking shops with little or no interest in moving things..
The better known journalists, irrespective of their independence are not members of this grouping. There must be something fundamentally wrong with the Press Club.
If awarding prizes is not enough of a farce. The input from the University of Malta to provide well-versed and prepared journalists is a far more serious matter. .
The communications course at University is so dull and lacking in vision that it cannot possibly live up to its ‘brief.’
Many, but not all, Communications graduates come ill-prepared with limited skills in reporting and most important of all in writing and delivery. There is more emphasis on marketing than journalism in general. The course has ostracised itself from the media out here and to my knowledge the head of the unit has never personally experienced the work at newsrooms and their publishing houses. Unlike some of his lecturers I should add. Not once in my 20 years of journalism have I seen him in a newsroom or a publishing house.
We have a sorry state in journalism, whereas the average age of a mature journalist abroad is around 50 in Malta it is more like 27. Abroad a journalist is a chain smoking, white haired, pot-bellied, ill-dressed womaniser, here he is more like an advert from the Cosmopolitan with slightly more gel. We have very few journalists with the inclination to build on their career, we have very few independent thinkers, who look to newsroom meetings as a battleground for some serious inquisitive questioning.
We talk of a weak Government and Opposition, we express concerns over a Prime Minister who cannot come to terms with the fact that he is reactivating the same doomsday tantrums uttered by Alfred Sant in 1997 and 1998. We observe the professionals who deprive Malta of the professionalism and services we are in dire need of and the business community who talk of innovation but offer none.
Yet, before we carry out an autopsy on their actions, we would be better off dissecting the functionality of the media people and their inabilities to provide a service which is fundamental for a pluralistic environment.
A democracy needs a tough press said Peter Preston, the long time editor of The Guardian during a George Sammut lecture.
We need more than that, we need a cynical, relentless, unmoving media that leaves no stone unturned.
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