The huge outpouring of public grief at the untimely death of Karl Gouder was mainly by those who got to know him in the various mansions of the Nationalist Party, but included also people from the Labour side who appreciated his gifts of warm people management.

He was a former mayor of St Julian's, twice co-opted to Parliament, followed by stints inside the party machine culminating in seeing NET TV register huge improvement in the latest Broadcasting Authority survey.

In vain, party leader Bernard Grech appealed to people to respect Karl's privacy - that actually seemed to further fuel speculation about Karl's death.

This is Malta, after all, where politics is a raging sea filled with sharks. And even a person as peace-loving as Karl seemed to draw upon his head acidic comment just by letting it be known he intended to contest for the post of Secretary General of his party.

People pointed to a comment posted by Neville Gafa which was immediately removed. Then it was recovered (apparently there are tools to do that today). It mentioned in a negative light the double co-option.

Then people remembered how on the eve of her assassination Daphne Caruana Galizia had received some negative comment by the same Gafa.

And people were soon asking whether Gafa was like the proverbial black fly that is said to appear on a person's nose just before that person's death.

Given Gafa's closeness to Joseph Muscat some began speculating if the negative comment on double co-option was coming from Muscat himself. So much for Bernard Grech's appeal against speculation.

Then Gouder's family and the party appealed for more information that could shed some light on Karl's last days.

Other than all this speculation, most of the comments on the social media expressed grief and loss, showing the empathy that characterized Karl in all his various tasks. He will indeed be a hard act to follow.

If the people at NET think they are having a bad time, let them consider their counterparts at the national broadcaster.

Here the CEO has reportedly been sacked, two principal journalists have left and there's a lot of confusion among the remaining staff members.

To listen to the TVM news bulletins these days has been quite painful - a series of ministerial press releases lumped together with no sense of what the public expects from the national broadcaster.

It shows the absence of an experienced hand. The new kids seem more eager to collect points from the party than to address the public's need to be informed.

 Kids are running the show and it's scary.

Two very important posts are thus waiting to be filled.

Here's to hoping that people like Karl be chosen, rather than the former PBS CEO.

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