Journalist and author Natalino Fenech’s controversial appointment as the PBS news manager and registered editor on Monday has stirred a hornet’s nest in the beleaguered national broadcaster.
Fenech, 45, has been accused by the Labour Party and press as being close to the Nationalist Party’s line of thought. But Fenech is also well known for his biting reports and his extensive network of contacts.
Fenech has good reason to feel uncomfortable with the Labour Party: in 1985 he was one of the founders of the movement Zghazagh Ghall-Ambjent. The group’s first protest march hit the news when Labourite thugs assaulted and violently disrupted the protestors. The police, as was often the case back then, failed to arrest the thugs, and instead arrested the victims – including Natalino Fenech, among others.
Fenech started his involvement in the environmental scene with Birdlife Malta. A keen birder, he started to care for injured wild birds. Fenech continued to campaign against indiscriminate hunting but eventually broke off with Birdlife, arguing that they were too soft on hunting.
Fenech himself claims that he is not a journalist by profession, but a geographer, having obtained his PhD from Durham University in the UK. And his field of study for his doctoral thesis was “Bird hunting and trapping in the Maltese Islands – some socio-economic, cultural, political, demographic and environmental aspects”.
Hailing from a family of hunters, he was a passionate bird photographer and later became one of the prime targets of the ire of the hunters lobby when he started penning articles about the excesses of hunting. He continued to speak openly about hunting abuses until the facade of his house was attacked by arsonists
Fenech described the history of Maltese hunting in his 1992 book, “Fatal Flight: The Maltese Obsession with Killing Birds”, after which he was accused of undermining the national interest.
Natalino Fenech joined The Malta Independent as a news reporter in 1992. A few years later, in 1997, he was poached by The Times together with Jesmond Bonello, Vanessa Sullivan and Mark Wood.
Before starting a career in journalism, he had worked for a short time with the Environment department.
As a journalist at both the Independent and The Times he was well known for his “very good” contacts with the police and Fenech Adami’s personal assistant Richard Cachia Caruana. Unsurprisingly he also had very good journalistic contacts with colourful figures such as Zeppi l-Hafi.
In 1996 he won the Print Journalism Category of the Malta Journalism Awards for articles published in The Malta Independent.
In 2005 he was appointed by Minister George Pullicino as a member on the Committee for Identifying Waste-to-Energy Technology with a brief to come up with a report on the issue, which to this date remains unpublished.
In the journalistic community, Fenech is known for his practical jokes on colleagues and his sheer sarcasm. He is not known to be a frequenter of the media social circuit. “I am a lone ranger in the central Mediterranean”, he said of himself.
Before moving to PBS with an annual salary of €48,900 (Lm21,000) including perks, that surpasses the annual salary of the Prime Minister, Fenech complained to colleagues over the recent appointments at The Times and Sunday Times.
Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, Labour leader Alfred Sant said that Fenech’s appointment – alongside the appointment to the newsroom of former PN anchor Keith Demicoli and former communications coordinator at the Rural Affairs Ministry Sergio Mallia – was part of a “well-thought plan to reduce PBS in a scandalous manner into a partisan tool for Government propaganda.
“We are warning the government that it will have to give an account of its behaviour after the next general election for every bare-faced case of abuse that will take place. Everybody will be accountable for his or her behaviour in front of the Maltese people and in terms of the laws of this country,” the Labour leader warned.
On his part, the Ministry for Investments, Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) accused Sant of “threatening the PBS journalists with serious consequences if they do not report in a way which pleases him.
“Alfred Sant’s behaviour is a threat to the journalistic independence of PBS employees made purposely as an electoral campaign is approaching to intimidate journalists and ensure that there is only reporting which portrays him as he wishes,” the Ministry said in a statement the next day.
Another of Fenech’s “bêtes noires” is the General Workers’ Union (GWU), with various clashes over the past few years. In April 2003, an editorial in the GWU weekly newspaper It-Torca described Fenech as “an accomplice” of the Nationalist Government’s decision to take “unpopular and tough measures which would be detrimental to Maltese and Gozitan workers and pensioners” after sending a series of challenging questions to GWU Secretary General Tony Zarb about the matter.
“We are sorry that The Times, which until a few years ago was renowned for its seriousness and integrity, today has stooped so low to assign a reporter to make a series of questions to the Secretary General of the GWU which were passed on by the same person whom today we describe as the ACCOMPLICE.
“In these circumstances, we describe this person as a TRAITOR,” the hysterical editorial thundered.

czahra@mediatoday.com.mt