I sometimes wonder how the various pronouncements of Maltese politicians would be seen through the eyes of a scathing democracy, like that of Britain or France. How would they be handled by the press there?

I think I know exactly how Labour leader Muscat’s pronouncement last night would be headlined somewhere more sophisticated: using the title I have given this piece, for instance. Instead, The Times gave it ‘Labour to publish electoral programme shortly – Muscat’. But that wasn’t really the news angle, was it? The most salient point was that the Labour leader thinks the electorate is stupid, as evidenced by the report’s opening paragraph:

“Labour opted to announce its proposals gradually for the people to understand what was being proposed but it would be publishing its electoral programme shortly, Labour leader Joseph Muscat said.”

In other words, unless you drop stuff on people bit by bit, in uncomplicated sound-bites, one simple idea every day so that nobody gets confused, they will be unable to understand what you mean. In this, and given the fact that half the population has voted Labour come hell or high water, calling into doubt their powers of analysis and education level (by which I don’t mean a university degree necessarily), he is probably right.

But that’s hardly the point. The point is that people shouldn’t be treated as though they’re stupid even if they are. That was Mintoff’s way, which Muscat is clearly picking up but without the swearwords or threats of violence. The attitude, however, remains the same: people are ignorant, so treat them as such.

The problem here is that the people who are not ignorant become deeply upset. Even some of those who are not particularly clever, and actually need to have bits of information spelled out to them, get upset. Rare is the man or woman who knows the full extent of his or her stupidity or is prepared to own up to it.

Then along comes the Labour leader and says in an interview that unless he explains a single idea every day in really simple language, people won’t understand.

The thing is that what some people have noticed (I am one of them) is that this is transparently a delaying tactic. That electoral programme has quite obviously gone AWOL, which is not surprising, given that the task of writing it was handed to that archetypal fossil from the Mintoff years, Karmenu Il-Guy Vella who, judging from his Facebook wall, struggles to write anything at all. His helpmeet, who has the pompous and pointless title of ‘segretarju tal-programm elettorali’, Aaron Farrugia, seems to be entirely taken up glued to Facebook, telling us to click Like so that he can beat the Likes record. It’s all so pathetic, really, and tragic that this lot will be running the country within a month.

If the Labour leader drops on us just one proposal every day, this doesn’t amount to that many proposals, and certainly not to the 120+ listed in the Nationalist Party’s electoral programme. But we shall see. I think Mr and Mrs Very Average don’t particularly care anyway, because by now they’re convinced that the country can run itself, jobs spring up regardless and the economy will bounce along just fine – because we’re God’s chosen people and protected by special licence from normal life and normal frights and risks.

 

Responsibility to readers

I am astonished at some of the seriously amateur reporting going on right now. True, it’s a lot quicker to just jot down what somebody is saying, there and then on your iPad, and whip it straight off to the newsroom, rather than gathering your thoughts and information about you, putting what’s said into context, and writing a proper newspaper piece that is not a complete disservice to your readers. I didn’t spend a great deal of time at journalism school, and it was rather a long time ago, but I distinctly recall pieces like those I’m reading now being ripped to shreds, metaphorically and sometimes even literally.

Take this sentence, for example, from one of the latest series of dictation notes of What Joseph Said.

“Labour, he said, went into great detail in its energy plan, including as to how and when the proposed investment would be carried out.”

Really? That’s not proper reporting. Proper reporting would go something like this: “While the Labour leader claimed last night that his party “had gone into extensive detail in preparing its energy plan”, details are short on the ground. Repeated requests for this plan, made by this newspaper, have been met with a refusal and the reply that “all will be revealed in time.”

I feel compassion for the editors and subs who must deal with this sort of thing on a daily basis. Where do you begin, and do you even bother or do you just give up in despair because if it doesn’t come naturally then it’s not going to come at all? Going by what I read, I find it hard to believe that some of these reporters have ever read a newspaper at all, and by that I don’t mean one published in Malta, with standards like their own.

Quite frankly, with such low expectations all round (while high standards get sidelined as not important), I really am not surprised that we’re about to make a superannuated Super One reporter prime minister. The man who fought so hard to keep Malta out of Europe will now preside with pomp over the European presidency, accompanied by that lady in printed Gucci wellies. The country gets the government it deserves, but also – as with the past five years – it can sometimes get the government it really doesn’t deserve or appreciate. So roll on five years of appalling taste and crass ineptitude.

 

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