Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/785757
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 12 FEBRUARY 2017 24 Opinion Publish and be damned, sue and be damned... either way, you're damned I t occurred to me long ago that when people use the expression 'I believe', they don't always necessarily have the same definition in mind. Take arguments about the existence of God, for instance. Not to actually start one here... can't offhand think of anything more pointless than that, to be honest – but I have often noticed a tendency to argue along the lines that: 'God HAS to exist, otherwise life would be meaningless'. Without re-booting the actual argument, I feel that the viewpoint alone tells us something about the nature of belief. When I say 'I believe in [something]', it is short for: 'on the basis of the available evidence, I have come to the conclusion that [something] is true'. Other people, on the other hand, use to mean simply: 'I WANT [something] to be true'. Sometimes, they never get past that single, solitary point of departure. Naturally, the same pattern applies as much to politics as religion (hardly surprising, seeing as people here have a doctrinal devotion to the political parties they support). At present, for instance, a giant chunk of this country seems predisposed to simply 'believe' an allegation that was published without a jot of evidence to support it. Yes, I refer to the allegation that Chris Cardona was spotted in a German brothel last week, and identified by his Che Guevara tattoo. OK, I'll admit that the initial impact made a pleasant change from the usual scandals... if nothing else, it gave birth to some priceless jokes and memes. But there is something frighteningly sinister about the way this entirely unsubstantiated bit of gossip suddenly became Gospel Truth to an army of religiously-inspired devotees. I lost count of arguments along the lines of: 'well, that's the sort of thing he would do anyway', or, even more bizarrely: 'I don't think Daphne would be crazy enough to concoct something like that for no reason...' Inherent in every variation of that motif is a subliminal desire for the allegation to be true: because it fits in neatly with the believer's own political prejudice... because there is a part of human nature which exults in the smuttiest revelations about people we don't like... or simply because they can't be arsed to actually look at the 'evidence' and draw their own conclusions (note: in this instance there isn't very much to look at... at least, not at the timing of writing.) Not an iota of that makes the allegations even the tiniest bit truer. It is exactly the same as believing in God simply because it helps you make sense of the incomprehensible. It tells us nothing about 'the truth'... but quite a lot about the psychology of the believer. Of course, none of it disproves the allegations, either. There is a converse to my own definition of 'belief '. When I say 'I do not believe'... it does not mean that 'I exclude the possibility under any or all circumstances'. It just means: 'I have gone over the available evidence, and find that it does not add up to convincing proof that [something] is true'. It is in this sense that I 'do not believe' Daphne Caruana Galizia's allegations about Chris Cardona. For all I know, they might be true (which, by the way, can also be said about absolutely any possibility you care to think of)... but they have not as yet been proven – far from it – and much more damningly, they lack even the barest of minimal due diligence to be warranted for publication in the first place. I could almost stop there, because the first basic rule of journalism has already been violated. A single source is not enough to go ahead with a decision to publish in a case like this. It has to be independently corroborated by at least one other source. Even then, the decision to publish is circumscribed by discretionary considerations. If the allegations are highly libellous – as they certainly were in this case – the journalist may decide to withhold publication until a stronger preventive case can be built up. Or to go ahead and publish, but stress that it is as yet an 'unconfirmed report'. These are among the very basic ingredients that go into anything that can call itself 'journalism'. Take them away, and what are you left with? Just idle, unreliable village gossip, that's all. Yet look how many people proved perfectly willing to dispense with such basic principles, in their eagerness to 'believe' something that matches their own preconceived notions. To tell you the truth, I find it almost terrifying. It is this sort of blind faith that can, in fact, seriously threaten the foundations of democracy in any country. It is the same global tendency that provides such fertile ground for 'fake news': more so in this case, because both the decision to publish and the (equally flawed) decision to 'believe' are clearly motivated only by political prejudice. This automatically makes the allegations harder, not easier, to believe (at least, by my definition of the word). Daphne has time and again demonstrated that she will stop at nothing to hit out at anything remotely connected with Labour in any conceivable way. In her zeal to do so, she has often got things wrong. The most laughable of these mishaps was when she mistook one 'Lara Boffa' for another who happened to be a teenage fashion blogger. It may seem a silly example, but it isn't. A simple phone- call would have determined the truth immediately. Was even this most entry-level of verification procedures carried out before publication? Heck no! If something can be used as ammunition, it WILL be used as ammunition. Whether it's true or not is clearly something to be established later, if at all... This brings me to the more recent twist in the saga: i.e. the fact that Chris Cardona has frozen Daphne Caruana Galizia's banks account by slapping a 43,000 euro garnishee order, along with a criminal libel suit. Now: I think we can all safely agree that Cardona is within his rights to at least sue for libel (though we may argue over the choice between civil and criminal jurisdictions). So the bone of contention is clearly the garnishee order, not the libel suit. I shall have to admit that this scenario presents an extreme dilemma for me. I cannot support an initiative which is wrong on so many fronts (I'll explain why in a sec)... but at the same time I cannot – will not – defend Daphne's or anyone else's Raphael Vassallo GourmetToday every Saturday 16.05pm on TVM