Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/920426
maltatoday SUNDAY 31 DECEMBER 2017 Interview 15 Malta has been exposed to unprecedented international scrutiny this year, with questions raised about freedom of expression and the rule of law. But for veteran journalist GODFREY GRIMA, much of this international criticism is in part a by-product of Malta's economic success able, and to hold others to account, you need muscle. I can tell you from experience, that's what made me. I had to climb every precipice with my fingernails. When I was charged in front of Parliament in 1972... then taken up to the courts, then arrested 38 times... that steels you. Not living in comfort zones. Jour- nalists are not made to live in com- fort ones. That's why one admires Daphne: she had this attitude to- wards life... she was unhappy about everything that happens around us. I don't even think she was particu- larly 'Nationalist'. I think she was an unhappy person living in this envi- ronment. Probably she should have lived in the future, or perhaps even in the past. But you can only admire her, for standing up to things the way she did... It may be coincidence, but at the same time as the international press (and European institutions) cast a spotlight on Malta, a Coun- cil of Europe's Commissioner of Human Rights commented about the 'anomaly' of political party media ownership in Malta. Politi- cal parties clearly do not have an interest in holding themselves up to scrutiny. So how is that sort of press muscle even possible, when they control so much of the me- dia? That's what I meant by our 'be- nign attitude', earlier. It's not just towards corruption. We have a benign attitude towards a lot of things: broadcasting, the media. Our media wouldn't even pass the initial test abroad. It would fail in objectivity. Even though it is get- ting better, I have to say. There are better writers today, and bet- ter stories. But the major actors in Maltese media are still the political parties. Propaganda has become an art: the way they present the news on their stations, the issues that they tackle... it's all phoney. But the press has to stand up to it. News- papers have to stand up and start seriously challenging the wisdom of having political parties owning so much media in the first place. It is something that has to be fought. That would take concerted ac- tion, but – with rare exceptions, such as the common editorial is- sued by several newspapers after Daphne's murder – independent media in Malta don't often unite over individual issues... not even when the issue concerns the regu- lation of the media itself. How do you account for this apparent lack of collegiality? What the media seems to lack in this country is a sense of national in- terest. There is no sense of national interest here. I've worked in news- papers for 32 years of my life, where the national interest always comes first. When there is a national issue, Fleet Street comes together with all the other institutions. Nobody ever disputes that. Also, internally they have what they call 'D-notice' committees. When it comes to the country's defence – and they define that in any way they like – stories are simply spiked. They don't appear. It doesn't have to be a Falklands War, or a problem with North Korea. It could even be a technological break- through, which gets 'D-Noticed' because, for whatever reason, it runs counter to the defence prior- ity. There is nothing like this here. There is no coming together of minds between the various owners and editors of newspapers. There is no common ground. And that's wrong. It can't be like that. To give an example: I was in London once, when there were food riots in Po- land. I was working the late night shift. I knew nothing at all about Poland, let alone about the riots. And I had to write the leader, at very short notice. So I called up a friend from The Times, explained the situ- ation, and he said: 'OK, give me 15 minutes to finish mine, and I'll write it for you'. Fifteen minutes later, a driver came round from The Times – no email in those days – and... there you have it. There was com- monality. There is also competi- tion, naturally. But it is competition between owners, not journalists. To sell papers, not to write them. I've told every single government over the years: there needs to be a Press Commission here, along the lines of the UK's Press Complaints Com- mission, which brings the editors together. Not necessarily the own- ers, but the editors. And they decide on a common definition of the na- tional interest... how, and to what language, they peg their stories. And this is the ideal country where they can do it. To be fair, the new libel laws do introduce the general con- cept. But it shouldn't just be a ques- tion of conciliation and arbitration. It should be a concept of collegiality. success