The Nationalist Party is a political party with a media machine attached, which it uses to put across its message. But it has become increasingly clear that over on the other side, the reverse is true. Super One is a media machine with a political party attached, which it uses to put across its message. It is not the Labour Party which is seeking election to government. It is Super One.
The PN media are functional tools in the hands of the Nationalist Party. But the Labour Party is a functional tool in the hands of Super One and its offshoots Maltastar and KullHadd. While the PN media are used to aid in the re-election of the Nationalist Party, the Labour Party is being used to aid in the election of Super One.
Super One’s profile – its brand, if you like – is now no longer part and parcel of the Labour Party but rather the other way round. The Labour Party is part of Super One. Super One’s profile dominates that of the Labour Party, which over the past two years has suffered a great deal of confusion as to name, identity, brand and logo and is still without any of those. Super One, on the other hand, has a strong identity, albeit a malignant one, and it has taken over from the party in terms of public perception. The Labour Party is now, in the public eye, Super One.
I don’t think the Labour Party itself is aware of this. That was bound to be a danger of electing as leader somebody who comes not from the party’s political wing but from its media stable. The Labour Party is led not by a seasoned politician but by a Super One hatchet-man, the predecessor of Charlon Gouder, and while the effect of this was already evident two years ago, now it is inescapably obvious. Muscat knows nothing about politics and policy-making and the party is being run as one huge media machine, with Super One taking over completely. Instead of Super One serving the interests of the party, the party has been brought to the stage where it is serving the interests of Super One.
While Muscat runs his party like a political media organisation, with all the emphasis on creating ‘news stories’ rather than writing sound policy, at the same time he has entirely lost or given up control of the actual media machine that is there to do his bidding. Again, this was bound to happen when he made his Faustian pact, dissolved the role of secretary-general and kicked Jason Micallef sideways into the chairmanship of Super One. It was obvious that somebody of Micallef’s personality and temperament was not going to accept the boss’s decision and toe the line. It did not take a master’s degree in psychology to work out that Micallef would take Super One hostage and build a rival organisation within the Labour Party, his personal realm.
This is what has happened. Super One and Maltastar are now no longer fighting the Labour Party’s battles or working to the Labour Party’s agenda. They are fighting the personal battles of the individuals who control the Labour media, and who are failing to put the party’s interests first and foremost. Over the last few days, for example, I have received more negative coverage on Maltastar than the Labour leader has received positive coverage. How is that going to help in the election of the Labour Party to government? People are not being asked to vote for me as prime minister. They are being asked to vote for Joseph Muscat. There have been more leading articles on Maltastar dedicated to bitching about me in a schoolyard fashion, to say nothing of the execrable spelling, vocabulary and grammar, than there have been leading articles which detail the achievements of Joseph Muscat so that we may applaud them.
Last Monday on BondiPlus, Muscat was asked why Super One has from the outset taken upon itself to serve as Magistrate Scerri Herrera’s defender, when this is not a political case but a matter of the administration of justice. Muscat’s response was that he has nothing to do with the stories covered by Super One. He does not telephone Super One every morning to see what they are doing, he said. I was flabbergasted, but this admission of lack of synchronisation and control told me all I need to know about how and why Super One’s identity, brand, image and direction have now parted company completely with Muscat’s weak and ultimately ill-fated efforts at a new and different image.
Super One undermines those efforts. I had up to Monday wondered about the inherent schizophrenia in what Muscat says and does and the completely contradictory messages he uses Super One and Maltastar to convey. I reasoned that if he doesn’t clamp down on them, then he is responsible for that editorial line and those methods, for the simple reason that the party media are there to serve the party and promote its message only.
On Monday, I understood what I have suspected for some time now: that Super One is no longer within Muscat’s control and that it has been hijacked by Jason Micallef, who now runs it as he deems fit and as he thinks a political party-cum-station should be run. That is why Super One has continued to be run along the same disastrous, ill-thought-out and damaging lines it was before 2008, while Muscat makes weak and ineffectual attempts at mouthing platitudes about taking the party in a different direction, all of which are overshadowed and contradicted by his television station.
Lou Bondi wanted to know why Super One tied its flag to Magistrate Scerri Herrera’s mast from the outset of the controversy. The answer to that is simple: both Jason Micallef and Charlon Gouder are close friends of the magistrate. Both were inside the courtroom to support her when she spoke under oath, before I had them removed on the grounds that I will need to call them as witnesses at some point. Gouder might have gone there masquerading as a Super One reporter, but Micallef had no real Super One role there at all. The chairmen of media organisations do not sit in court and write law reports. He was there as a friend and supporter of the magistrate, along with former Lorry Sant man Ronnie Pellegrini.
Joseph Muscat, when pressed, said on television that he will not enter into the merits of the Magistrate Scerri Herrera controversy. That’s a good thing, because he appears not to know any of the facts. He thinks there is a police investigation (there isn’t), for instance. But the salient point here is that he is unable to stop his party’s media from fighting Magistrate Scerri Herrera’s battle, even if it means that the party is being hugely embarrassed and compromised by the situation. Joseph Muscat cannot control Jason Micallef, and Jason Micallef controls Super One.
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