Some things happen only in Malta.

It’s a cliché, but when we come across certain events there is no other way how to describe such situations.

As a newsroom, we were informed of a press conference that was going to be given by parliamentary secretary Chris Said about tours that were going to be held for anyone interested to know what projects were carried out with the co-financing of the European Union.

Yes, you read correctly – organised tours, just like those you take abroad to visit the Colosseum or the Eiffel Tower.

Isn’t it silly that such ideas actually come to someone’s mind, are accepted and then implemented? Isn’t it even sillier that these tours are then promoted as if one is going to be taken to see the Niagara Falls or the Great Wall of China?

But then, come to think of it, if people are willing to go to open day activities at the Maghtab landfill to see piles of rubbish and hundreds of others visited Mater Dei Hospital when it was officially opened, we guess they find nothing wrong in boarding a bus to be taken around the island to visit a few tarmacked roads. What fun! One wonders whether they were offered packed lunches or stopped for a picnic somewhere.

As a people, the Maltese are known to eagerly attend public activities in great numbers. Whenever and wherever activities are held, the Maltese turn up. But we could not help shake our heads in desperation when the news about these tours reached our offices.

Don’t people have better things to do?

But then, if they continue to go to such activities, one cannot really blame the government for organizing them. After all, propaganda matters.

This takes us to another news event we were invited to attend on the same day last week – the opening of a newly-refurbished laundry at St Vincent de Paul residential home for the elderly by Parliamentary Secretary Mario Galea.

Again, it is great that our elderly residents get this kind of service, but is there a need to issue a call for journalists to attend the opening of a laundry? Is it so exciting to film washing machines and dirty linen?

We know that ministers and parliamentary secretaries like to promote what they do, but even here we feel that there should be a limit.

We can’t imagine the BBC or Rai attending the opening of a laundry. Such events will not be attended by any minister or junior minister abroad. And journalists are not asked to be present either. It’s just done, that’s it. So why do we, in Malta, resort to such publicity stunts?

And, frankly, these are just two of the many silly requests for coverage that we get.