The year in review

It is that time of the year when we look back at the last 12 months, and boy oh boy was this a tough year! Over the past few years we have experienced an ever increasing workload. Journalists in Malta have not had a ‘quiet’ year since 2012, when a certain MP brought down a government and the country headed towards a general election.

But those distant memories pale in comparison to what happened over these past twelve months, stained with blood, sorrow and riddled with scandals.

This publishing house was particularly affected by the brutal murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia. Not only did her murder hit us hard because she has a family, like us, or because she was a colleague, but also because she was a columnist with this media house. Many of us knew her and spoke with her on a daily or weekly basis.

We have so far been unable to find a fitting replacement for her column on page 8. Like every other newsroom in Malta, Daphne’s murder kept us occupied, from the day she was killed as she left her family home, to the investigations that followed

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and the subsequent arraignment of three known criminals. Yet the case is far from solved and will likely keep us occupied and concerned in the weeks and months to come.

This was also a difficult year because of the sheer volume of events and happenings. While the much-hyped EU Presidency and Malta Summit did not pose much of a challenge, the turmoil in the political sphere did. This was the year when the boat was rocked repeatedly, and hard. There were scandals aplenty, including the infamous German brothel claims and the severe legal bullying that followed. Then came the bombshell Egrant claims, and the fallout that ensued.

Then a snap election was called, and a short but bitter campaign was waged.

Malta’s media houses were practically stretched to the limit in trying to cover multiple daily press conferences, court proceedings and chasing bank officials.

Our resources were tested in this demanding atmosphere but we did our best to bring balanced coverage of both sides, even if we did take an editorial stand. Things were made more interesting when the PN-PD coalition was announced, even though that flopped and Labour was handed another landslide victory.

But besides the elections there were many other events to cover, including multiple murders and a spate of crimes.

This was also a year in which this newsroom broke several important stories and carried exclusive interviews. We published leaked FIAU reports that spoke of money laundering and kickbacks (and passed them on to a magistrate), we ran many stories about the turmoil at the Broadcasting Authority and Public Broadcasting Services and ran exclusive stories about a forced abortion and a woman who was allegedly raped while being held hostage in an underground space. We also conducted weekly interviews on our INDEPTH programme. This was a tough year for us but we always rose to the challenge. Besides, in our line of work it is better to be busy than to have nothing to report on. Having said that, while we look forward to an exciting 2018, we hope that our politicians and other newsmakers will be better-behaved in the coming 365 days.