Can there ever be too many newspapers? I start with an immediate auto answer to the question: of course not. With ink in my blood probably since conception, I have always believed the more newspapers we have padding the market the merrier it can get. It is only when a newspaper is made to give up its ghost that saddens many like me, as when Il-Berqa, Il-Haddiem, Il-Hajja, Sport, the old Illum, The Bulletin, the Malta News and several others unhappily folded up over the years.

The topic was raised informally during the recent meeting of Mediterranean journalists hosted by the Institute of Maltese Journalists (IGM). Some of our participants expressed, over lunch and coffee, their amazement that “so many” newspapers are published in such a small place as Malta. They said so in a very complimentary way, insisting that the presence in the market of many newspapers is a good sign in that it indicates there is a readership out there and we should all be happy about it.

We are, I insisted, but there sometimes needs to be a reality check. The expression “many newspapers” does not necessarily translate into many readers, although the market has evolved considerably since the immediate post-war period. It is only when you get to know who publishes the papers, and why they are published, that you start having some doubts about the benign attributions accorded us by colleagues from overseas.

It is no state secret that some of our newspapers are hanging onto life by a thread. The threat from on-line services and other electronic goodies cannot be underestimated as new generations of potential readers seem to prefer to pass them by. To their credit, newspapers have been able to hold on to their slice of the national advertising cake, but if it’s readers we’re talking about, there also seems to be an exercise in camouflage taking place.

When a general election looms, however, newspapers only too naturally receive a new lease of life. People want to know what’s happening, who’s doing what and other facets of electioneering. Paper scans, which fill the radio and television schedules, sometimes help entice readers to certain papers and certain writers. Now we have Simone Cini who has serenely matured from a popular television news hack into a top-rated current affairs presenter and has embarked on an almost missionary assignment: that of highlighting newspapers and newspaper content in a new One TV programme that, as she told Bla Agenda the weekend before, should make up somewhat for the hefty price one has to otherwise pay, if he could afford it, to buy all the Sunday newspapers.

One ardently hopes the treatment will be fair throughout. Sadly, with the electoral campaign now in full swing, we have already been witnessing newspapers and newspapermen, for long posing as “neutral” observers and commentators by way of seeking to nurture “a southern readership” (interpret that as you may), coming out of their sheepskin to show a new set of steel teeth with which to bite more at one party rather than the other, even if it’s at the risk of losing their credibility. Suddenly, southern readers can go to hell.

It is a safe bet to say that whatever the election result, there will be some post-election blues in the Maltese newspaper world. Commercial realities will re-surface with a vengeance, but the hatchet job will have been done, not necessarily successfully, on behalf of old faithful.

GOZITANED!

Honestly, I was anticipating the backlash from Gozitan readers over my piece about the Rabat parish priest saga the previous week. Sorry, Daphne, this time I beat you to it.

Centuries ago, Voltaire taught us one may disagree with all that another one says or writes, but he would defend that same person’s right to do so with his life. So as Lennon and McCartney penned in much nearer times: Let it be.

On the other hand, I always believed my smiling image would come in handy for someone nice one day. In his delightful retort, Dr A. Grech of Rabat, Gozo, must have been mesmerised by it, as he kept calling me “dear” and other sugarcoated adjectives. He even invited me to a rendezvous, possibly in Gozo, but I’m not sure I should accept. What would he call me next, darling?

Then there was this piece of magical mystery in which the good Dr Grech told me to give a glance to “Anna Falzon’s letter on the next page of The Malta Independent on Sunday”. Two things had me really perplexed:

How could he, a letter-writer to this newspaper, know BEFOREHAND what was to be published on the next page? Has he got spies in there? Sorry, Mr Editor, I couldn’t resist the dig!

The Anna Falzon letter turned out to be a phantom one. I simply could not, and like me the rest of the readers who bothered to finish Dr Grech’s letter, find it anywhere in that issue. The mind boggles.

One final important point to make: I wrote what I wrote not out of any disrespect to Msgr Joseph Farrugia, who is no doubt grudgingly caught in this mediaeval farce. Msgr Farrugia was an ex-lecturer of mine at university and he has long been and always will be in my highest cultural and academic estimation, whatever that’s worth.

Editor’s Note

Anna Falzon’s letter DID appear on Sunday 30 September at the bottom of page 19, the page next to Mr Flores’s article.