‘I don’t attack the media’: A falsehood in the face of facts

“I don’t attack the media”, Robert Abela said with a straight face in response to questions by the press earlier this week.

Everybody has witnessed Abela’s hostility towards journalists.  The whole country has seen Abela ruthlessly attack one journalist after another.

The Institute of Maltese Journalists (IGM) had to issue a statement condemning Abela in the strongest possible terms, saying, “The Prime Minister should not instigate hate towards journalists and the media”. The IGM told Abela that accusing journalists of working for the so-called “establishment” and implying they are enemies of the State was “unacceptable in a democratic society”.

Abela knows his claim that “I don’t attack the media” is false. He attacks the media for breakfast. He mocks journalists, intimidates them, makes false accusations against them, berates them, and, as the IGM said, “instigates hate towards journalists.” He’s not content setting his ONE attack dogs on journalists, bloggers, and columnists. He even does it himself, openly, publicly, and brazenly.

He knows we know he’s lying, but he does it anyway.  He does it purposely to show that he can and that nobody can stop him.  Abela’s intentional contempt for the truth is a strategic demonstration of his power.  He lies to us and laughs in our face because there’s nothing we can do about it.

Abela was asked whether he would condemn Neville Gafa.   “A blogger, good or bad, is considered a journalist working in the mainstream media, and I do not attack the media,” Abela repeated.

Yet just one week earlier, Abela was attacking another columnist, Jacques Rene Zammit. He accused Zammit of “causing harm to the country”, of making “subtle digs against the Maltese government”. He invited other journalists to “go and see what he published”.

Abela claimed Zammit “systematically harmed, not only our country but my colleagues.” He even threatened Zammit that he would never let him become the country’s nominee for EU court judge—“I am being clear about this,” he said.

When Mark Camilleri published chats between Rosianne Cutajar and Yorgen Fenech, which doubtlessly were in the public interest, Abela launched a tirade against Camilleri.  He called him “cruel” and “a misogynist”. Abela claimed Camilleri “chose a particular moment in Rosianne’s life to ensure maximum damage”.

At a press conference on 6 May, Abela attempted to humiliate journalist Monique Agius.  Before she had even asked her question, he quipped, “Don’t ask me whether those you represent form part of the establishment, because you’ll have a clear reply”.

“I don’t know what you are implying,” Agius quickly retorted, but Abela refused to elaborate beyond insisting that she had understood him clearly.  As soon as she managed to ask her question, Abela went on the offensive once again. “You ask me a question that the establishment made yesterday, and then you condemn me for claiming that the media house you represent is part of the establishment,” Abela replied.

When The Times of Malta journalist Jacob Borg confronted Abela with questions about his involvement in a shady deal with Christian Borg from which Abela made €45,000, Abela again turned hostile. “Jacob, since your editor decided to enter into a conspiracy with the chief PN strategist [Christian Peregin] and they were caught conspiring at Costa coffee, I will no longer answer questions that are intended only for you to spin as much as you like and to lie as much as you can.”

That wasn’t the first or the last time Abela accused the media of lying.  After The Shift published incriminating evidence exposing his ministers’ wrongdoing, Abela lost his rag.  He called The Shift “a fake news blog specialising in reporting falsehoods”.  “Ninety per cent of what they report contains falsehoods,” he claimed.

The Shift’s revelations about the phantom consultancy for Clayton Bartolo’s girlfriend (now wife) weren’t false.   It was so true that Bartolo is gone. Abela’s open assault on The Shift wasn’t triggered by any falsehoods – it was his way of punishing The Shift for revealing the truth.

In the press conference earlier this month, Abela stressed that he did not react to “Personal, negative, destructive criticism”.

“I never retaliated because the maturity and responsibility of my role elevate me above this,” he said.  Never retaliated?  That’s all he does.  What maturity? He can’t contain himself.

Whenever any media house, columnist, or blogger highlights Abela’s wrongdoings or those of his ministers and friends, Abela’s default reaction is to retaliate viciously, to vilify and smear those who are simply doing their job.

“We have seen the independent media work in this way several times, whereby there are these supposed investigations and the next day Repubblika seeks a magisterial inquiry,” Abela said. He decried their “disgusting tactics”.

Abela accuses the media of “fake news,” but the biggest fake news is that Robert Abela does not attack the media. Indeed, the portal Mapping Media Freedom, supported by the European Commission, has registered Abela’s attack on The Shift as a threat to press freedom.

With a Prime Minister like Robert Abela, it’s no wonder Malta languishes behind Gambia, Sierra Leone, Liberia and the Ivory Coast in the Press Freedom Index.  Malta is practically tied with Hungary,  which has a terrible press freedom record thanks to its Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán.