Let me make one thing clear. My journalistic shoes are just those of a sports reporter and, for many years in the past, a water polo and swimming columnist for Allied Newspapers, apart from other writing duties I have been carrying out for years for Maltese and foreign sports and social magazines, and as a press officer of a local sports association.

My full time profession was totally unrelated with a pastime, which, for about 33 years, has thankfully fulfilled my ambitions of giving a small contribution to the sphere of sport. In all these years no fellow journalist has ever said or alleged in writing, overtly or covertly, that my reporting is smeared with biased comments. In any case, such accusations would have been utterly unethical, coming from within.

Finally, the ‘coup de grace’ came from Stephen Calleja, managing editor of The Malta Independent and a regular columnist of the Sunday newspaper.

In his column entitled “A hot summer in the pool” last Sunday (12 September), he had the effrontery of making a sweeping accusation in my regard of “biased water polo reporting in favour of Neptunes in 20 or more years,” and this without providing a shred of tangible evidence (even if this is a highly-subjective matter), other than quoting a condensed (due to the exigencies of the sports editor) heading in The Times of a winter league trio of matches played eight months ago which purportedly left out San Giljan’s victory against Neptunes, when in fact it did not. His own article is testimony to this contradiction.

The point I want to make is that in my view this columnist was highly imprudent when commenting on a fellow journalist, and did so against all journalistic norms and ethics.

It was a personal and scathing attack on my integrity as a sports correspondent of long standing for The Times and The Sunday Times. The journalistic code of behaviour I was brought up to embrace suggests that I should refrain from reacting imprudently to these uncalled for comments lest I am accused of same by Stephen Calleja.

As for his other comments, it is not within my competence to clarify or rebut what was written. This is best left to other people referred to in his article and to the ASA.

Alex Vella

PEMBROKE