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Karl Schembri
Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi has defended his Communications Coordinator’s email sent to The Independent last week in which a journalist was derided for asking questions about government’s economic advisors.
Speaking to MaltaToday, Gonzi said he was the first Prime Minister to give a monthly press briefing that was open to all journalists’ questions but added that his coordinator was reacting to unfair questions.
On the other hand, the Institute of Maltese Journalists said it will be raising the issue with the Office of the Prime Minister.
The email, which was leaked to MaltaToday has caused quite a stir in Government quarters after its contents were revealed last Sunday.
“As you know every month I give a press briefing that is open to all media, in which every journalist can ask any kind of question,” Gonzi said. “I can’t be clearer than that. There was no other Prime Minister who did this. I open the door completely to all journalists to make all the questions they want to, and I always try to reply in the best way I can.”
His communications coordinator, Alan Camilleri, had reacted to a journalist’s questions by sending a terse email to the editor of The Malta Independent on Sunday.
“Look at the questions I’m getting from your journalists,” he wrote. “Are they by any chance the future editors of Maltastar.”
Asked whether he endorsed his communications coordinator’s message, the Prime Minister said he agreed with him.
“My communications coordinator was complaining about the way certain questions were being made, and also about the way parts of an interview I gave were twisted with comments that shouldn’t have been made,” Gonzi said. “My communications coordinator’s comment was that these things shouldn’t happen and I agree with his comment. When a question is asked one expects an answer but not as happened in my case, where an interview was turned into a commentary.”
Asked which interview he was referring to, the Prime Minister mentioned one in MaltaToday, although there was absolutely no connection with the questions sent by The Independent journalist. It remains unclear why Gonzi chose to mention the MaltaToday interview within the context of the email controversy.
“It was an interview I conceded supposedly for Smash TV which ended up with a whole commentary on the newspaper… I’m not bothered by comments because everyone is free to make the comments he likes but an interview is an interview and a commentary is a commentary. The journalist should have told me beforehand that it would have taken that form, not fool the Prime Minister in that way. These things shouldn’t happen and the communications coordinator’s comment was made in this sense.”
MaltaToday had in fact requested an interview with the Prime Minister specifically to be published on this newspaper and broadcast on Smash TV.
“The Prime Minister’s office was clearly informed through our request that the interview would be published on MaltaToday and broadcast on the television programme Int X’Tahseb,” MaltaToday editor Saviour Balzan said.
On 23 November Camilleri himself sent an email to MaltaToday confirming that “the interviews for MaltaToday and Int X’Tahseb” could take place at the Prime Minister’s office on 26 November.
“It was published on 28 November in the usual format of the MaltaToday interview and broadcast unedited two days later,” Balzan added.
In the meantime the Institute of Journalists will raise the case with the Office of the Prime Minister following a complaint filed by Charlot Zahra, the journalist derided by Camilleri.
The Institute’s Chairman, Malcolm Naudi, said the council discussed the situation in Zahra’s absence, given that he is a council member, and has unanimously agreed to take up the case with the Office of the Prime Minister.
“The Council feels that prima facie the journalist was not treated as he should have been,” Naudi said. “The Institute will be contacting the OPM next week to hear their side of the case.”
karl@newsworksltd.com
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