Looking back at the many priceless media moments of 2007, the most entertaining has to be the sight of Joe Saliba storming off contractor Zaren Vassallo’s yacht with One TV’s Charlon Gouder in hot pursuit.
“Shame on you,” the PN secretary general seethed as he stepped off the Princess Charlene in Msida last August. “You did not allow a man to take a holiday with his family. That man is a private individual…”
Private individual? Zaren Vassallo? Sure he is. But Saliba had only just admitted what we all already knew: that the Nationalist Party accepts secret donations from precisely such “private individuals”, who also happen to tender for lucrative government contracts afterwards. The same Zaren was at the time involved in the reconstruction of the party headquarters in Pieta’… and while there may be no direct connection between these undeniable facts, surely Joe Saliba’s choice of companion for his luxury Mediterranean frolic was well within the public domain.
Or was it? It is not an easy question to answer in 21st century Malta, where internationally accepted definitions of “the public domain” do not necessarily apply. For let’s face it: if they did, the question of Alfred Sant’s precise medical condition would not still be shrouded in mystery two weeks after his operation. And certain ministers involved in certain scandals would not be where they are today either.
Besides, media tactics such as those employed by Charlon Gouder, and to a lesser extent by NET TV journalists such as Keith Demicoli and Keith Micallef, are considered “acceptable” or “outrageous” depending entirely on who happens to be using them against whom. This might explain why the PN can howl in indignation at the gross invasion of Saliba’s privacy, but at the same time see nothing wrong with its own, assiduous 16-year assault on every aspect of Alfred Sant’s private life you care to name.
Contradictions aside, it is also a fact that the Maltese media-consuming public lacks an appetite for the kind of obtrusive paparazzi journalism that gave us Odissea 2000 and The News Of The World. Otherwise, Saliba’s cruise would have elicited the same kind of curiosity as the similar stunts performed by France’s newly elected PM Nicolas Sarkozy, whose summer romps and winter flirtations are now the subject of endless media fascination.
There are, of course, differences: Zaren Vassallo makes a disappointing substitute for Carla Bruni, which is probably why the Labour media tried to sex him up by alluding to “two unidentified female companions” on the yacht. (Later, these were identified as… drums rolling… Zaren’s and Joe Saliba’s own wives.)
But the biggest distinction by far is that in France, there was never any question about whether the media had a right to delve into matters concerning public figures. In Malta, on the other hand, the same issue is one giant, uncharted grey area, and failure to recognise the acceptable limits can sometimes be hazardous for your health.

Family matters
Unsurprisingly, the most jealous custodian of his own privacy remains Alfred Sant, who has been hounded by the PN-friendly media ever since his election to MLP leader in 1992.
Occasionally, their sheer invasiveness has prompted disproportionate reactions to even the most harmless incursions: like the 1997 episode of Pjazza Tlieta, which had “shocked” Labour viewers by airing footage of their beloved leader sharing a pizza with his daughter in a Valletta restaurant.
The cause of the outrage was a widespread perception, supported by all local politicians, that private moments with family members are by definition “inviolable” by the media. And yet, the same politicians who loudly insist on these rules, are very often the first to parade their own family members for public consumption for all the world like a troop of performing monkeys.
Just look at all those electoral pamphlets thrust in your letter box each day, with images of “Mr Candidate the Family Man”, surrounded by his dutiful children, long-suffering wife, and the occasional family budgie. One cabinet minister has even taken to uploading photos of his ailing mother on his personal blog, perhaps under the impression that this might endear him to an electorate of “mammoni”. And of his supposedly “new ways of doing politics”, the only truly “new” thing about Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi’s administration to date has been the elevation of his wife Kate to the unofficial status of Malta’s “First Lady”... a hitherto unheard of, and not altogether unwelcome initiative.
Ironically, even Alfred Sant himself chose to be sworn in as Prime Minister in 1996 flanked by his daughter Martha: the same daughter he would later try to shield from the insidious prying of the nasty, nasty media.
It seems, then, that family matters are no-go areas only in cases where the media exposure is not stage-managed by the politicians themselves: a tell-tale sign, which amply illustrates that the issue at stake here is not privacy at all, but rather a preoccupation with being in absolute control.

The newsprint curtain
But in other instances, press intrusion has also served to delineate the self-imposed boundaries of Malta’s traditionally prudent and unadventurous media.
In 1998, The Malta Independent on Sunday ran a front page story under the headline “Alfred Sant does not believe in marriage”, quoting a court expert who had testified in the Labour leader’s annulment proceedings several years earlier. This signalled a new and unprecedented direction in media treatment of public figures, treading as it did on a traditionally sensitive minefield: marital breakdown. The official justification was that PM Alfred Sant had himself just launched an initiative to study the possibility of introducing divorce: a fact which automatically positioned his own views on marriage, even if expressed privately, within the public domain.
So the newspaper argued, at any rate. But its owners did not agree, and sacked editor Ray Bugeja a week later, after he ignored their previous warning and allowed columnist Daphne Caruana Galizia to repeat the same affront.
The fallout from this incident has left an indelible mark on the media landscape: a visible indicator of the utmost limits of editorial independence, and a constant reminder of the possible consequences of failing to take the divine status of the Maltese political leader into account.
In fact, it is still touted as an example of all that is shocking, profane and utterly unacceptable in Maltese political journalism. One can only wonder how the Labour Party would have handled the kind of pressures exerted on US President Bill Clinton at the height of the Monica Lewinski affair.

The thin red line
But how does one define the public domain? The Data Protection Commission exists in part to address this very question, and today’s Commissioner, Paul Mifsud Cremona, admits it is not always easy to draw the line between the public’s right to know and the individual’s right to privacy.
“A journalist has an obligation, not just a duty, to inform the public of what is in the public interest. This is enshrined in the European Convention of Human Rights and also the Press Act. People also have a right to privacy, but a public person and a private individual are not on an equal footing. It is very difficult, very slippery to find the right balance between the two…”
Mifsud Cremona found himself on this selfsame slope last year, when Parliamentary Secretary Toni Abela complained to the Commission about a One TV news bulletin which had aired recordings of telephone conversations with him without his knowledge or permission.
The Rabat notary deemed this to be a breach of his privacy, while the Labour station argued that the recordings revealed a conflict of interest which was of public concern. Mifsud Cremona found himself turning to the Data Protection Act, which expressly weighs in favour of the right to information and freedom of expression. Article 6 of Chap. 440 makes this clear: “Nothing in this Act may prejudice the application of the measures of the Act about the European Convention (of Human Rights) regarding the freedom of expression or the measures of the Press Act regarding journalistic freedoms.”
But rushing to Abela’s defence was (ironically) the Press Act itself, which empowers citizens to sue over issues which would never even make it to court in most other European states. Among the recognised grounds for libel is “exposing to public ridicule and contempt”: a proviso which makes a potential lawsuit of every single political cartoon. Clearly, here is a giant legal discrepancy staring us all in the face.
Mifsud Bonnici also took into account the wealth of European Court of Human Rights rulings on similar instances: notably, The Guardian and Observer v United Kingdom (1991), Handyside v United Kingdom (1976); Jersild v Denmark (1994), and Bergens Tidende et. v Norway (2000).
Eventually the Data Protection Commissioner found in One TV’s favour, after observing that the information released had a direct bearing on Abela’s public office. But he admits that things are not always clear-cut.
“Journalists are also guided by their own ethical standards, and my office is currently in discussions with journalists institutions to draw up a Code of Conduct. But balance in these matters is a question of judgement. It’s not something that can just be written down.”

Altered states
In the absence of any clear consensus on media guidelines for privacy it seems that individual Maltese media have to find this out for themselves… the hard way.
Last year, IT Minister Austin Gatt discovered to his cost that “jokes” about Alfred Sant’s presumed bad habits do not quite fit the acceptable bill as far as Labour is concerned.
Gatt is currently facing both civil and criminal charges over his suggestion, at the PN General Conference in October, that Discovery Channel was planning a documentary about Alfred Sant for a series about politicians with well-known alcohol and drug abuse problems. Again this is uncharted territory for Malta, but hardly for the rest of Europe. In fact, Gatt’s jibe – deemed the nadir of bad taste by the Labour spin machine – simply pales into insignificance compared to the relentless media campaign against, to name one example, the UK Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy, who resigned after admitting to an alcohol problem in 2005.
Admittedly, Kennedy did not help his own cause by boasting about his boozing capabilities on live TV interviews. But in the end, it was the combined efforts of tabloid journalists (who sifted through his garbage in search of empty wine bottles) and ITV reporters (who unearthed evidence of his earlier treatment for alcoholism) which led to his downfall in 2005.
To Charles Kennedy must be added David Blunkett, Charles Clarke, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Richard Nixon and many more: all of whose exploits were exposed, and their careers peremptorily ended, by their respective countries’ inquisitive media.
Malta, however, is another country with another set of psychological complexes, and the dynamics tend to work out somewhat differently.

Poles apart
With the dubious exception of John Dalli – whose resignation in 2004 now appears to have been orchestrated – Maltese politicians invariably emerge unscathed from similar, and sometimes more serious scandals.
For this reason, Malta’s watershed case is arguably that of former Police Commissioner George Grech, who resigned in 2001 after steamy details of his affair with Polish-born Isabella Azzopardi emerged in the press.
The saga started when Grech found himself accused of rape, and just like a family-friendly politician under fire, he defended himself by appearing on TV flanked by his wife. But in an unusual twist to the time-honoured formula, Grech went on to supply his own firing squad with all the ammunition himself: admitting in court to a wide variety of astonishingly graphic details of the affair, of which the only enduring image remains the collage of penises (“objects”, as the court records them) which adorned the home of Ms Azzopardi’s Polish mother.
In so doing Grech quickly became a liability, ultimately prompting the Labour Party to call for his resignation “to restore the public’s trust in the police force.”
But it would be unwise to ascribe the resignation itself to the power of the press. After all, the most damning details did not emerge through investigative journalism, but because Grech drew attention to them himself. In a sense, then, Grech’s case is also the exception that makes the rule, and speaks volumes about the differences that exist between the media in Malta and elsewhere.

Size matters
In the end, the likeliest explanation for our unique circumstances remains our size. On one level, having a population of less than half a million (and a GDP to match) makes it hard to engender celebrities of the Britney Spears/Paris Hilton variety, on whom so much of tabloid culture thrives. On another, it has also nurtured a culture of patronage, an “everybody knows everybody” network, whereby personal advancement all too often depends on having well-placed connections in every sphere.
From this perspective, it is easy to appreciate why intrusive media have never really been popular in Malta. People at large are unlikely to appreciate bold, investigative and invasive journalism, when it can also cost them their direct contact with power. Neither will they applaud such journalism too loudly, when they know that the same tactics may one day be directed at their own private affairs.
And ultimately, it is the people at large, not the politicians, who actually dictate media standards.

rvassallo@mediatoday.com.mt