The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

In this article , The Shift News reports that female journalists and politicians are on the receiving end of an avalanche of abusive tweets, receiving such tweets ‘every 30 seconds on average’. This information came from a study released by Amnesty International. Twitter is a fast social network. Posts refresh rapidly and news, whether trivial or critical, can be followed live in a series of short and succinct pieces of text linked with relevant hashtags. This is advantageous when used well, but clearly greatly disadvantageous if utilised by the wrong hands.  With such rapidity of newsfeeds, such a swell of ‘abusive or otherwise hostile tweets’ is made possible, though it shouldn’t be. Often the ones behind such tweets will argue that it is free speech after all, and who are we, campaigning for our freedom of speech, to limit them from speaking their minds? Such an argument is one I hear or see online (for trolls generally prefer to hide behind the anonymity of their screens) fa

Yesterday, something excellent happened. Speak held its first event at university. Speak is a student organisation, a collaboration between three university student media organisations: Insite Malta, The Third Eye and The Yuppie. The idea behind it is to create an open space that encourages discussion and healthy debate about important issues amongst the student body. Caroline Muscat from The Shift News was their guest yesterday. The event took the form of a discussion about media in Malta and youth’s participation, and this was what made it special and so good. Ms Muscat began by giving a bit of background information about The Shift and its mission. The Shift has it all in its name – it is a shift away from political party owned media, an independent pen that aims to hold power to account. Journalism is in a symbiotic relationship with society. It is there to protect it, warn it and inform it. Without it, we wouldn’t know what is going on around us, not only on a loc

Times of Malta reported in this article that migrant women have been moved from the Dar il-Liedna centre in Fgura to the men’s centre in Hal Far. The reason behind this move was that the women’s centre was becoming overcrowded, and so a ‘temporary’ move was needed until space could be made available again in Dar il-Liedna or elsewhere. Security measures have been set in place in Hal Far: In order to cater for this temporary arrangement, a boundary wall was constructed separating the men’s compound from the women’s compound, floodlights installed for extra security at night, and female security guards had also been deployed. It all seems planned out and under control, right down to the women’s own ‘private sanitary facilities’, but one basic and essential action was forgotten: the women themselves '[were not] told why they needed to move to the area in Hal Far'. Why weren’t they told? They had every right to know - more of a right than anyone else, in fact. Perhap

T his is one of the most dangerous times for journalists to be writing in a decade, according to a report highlighted by an article in Time . The article states: Journalists around the world have faced a substantial increase in physical and verbal attacks compared to previous years. The report also noted that a decline in media freedom around the world … had been matched by an increase in authoritarian tendencies guided by strongman leaders. This is shocking, but it also does not come as much of a surprise. One doesn’t need to ask why it is shocking. It’s blatantly obvious. The thought that individuals might face threats and intimidation on a daily basis for writing is already awful enough. Then we remember Daphne Caruana Galizia, Jan Kuciak, Viktoria Marinova and Jamal Khashoggi, amongst so many others, and realise further how absolutely barbaric attacks on journalists can and do get. The verbal assaults become physical, and only grow worse as time passes. But the re

We are now in the fourteenth month since the assassination of one of Malta’s prime investigative journalists, Daphne Caruana Galizia. Still, there is complete impunity for her murder with the mastermind still unknown. Silence is not always golden. In times like this, we all need to take a stand and defy the Orwellian tactics and propaganda. Margaret Atwood , in her prophetic novel, The Handmaid’s Tale , writes this: ‘All that is silenced will clamour to be heard’. And so it will. Even a simple, peaceful act of leaving a flower or candle on the protest memorial demanding justice for Daphne in Valletta is an act of protest. It shows that society is still angry and is still demanding answers. More than anything, an immediate public inquiry into Daphne's murder is needed, and you can help push for one. Amnesty Italia has a petition demanding it and you can be one of the thousands signing it globally. Besides this, you can attend the monthly vigil for Daphne outside the law cour

This article is absolutely beautiful. Jamal Khashoggi’s daughters show a side to their father that hasn’t yet been spoken of. Illustration by Razan Jamal Khashoggi  (taken from The Washington Post ) Sometimes it’s so easy to forget that the murder of a journalist – or indeed, of any individual – has an impact on their loved ones that nobody can even begin to imagine. Their loved ones loved and knew the person as a human being with all of their idiosyncrasies, and knew their character as nobody else could have. Jamal Khashoggi was a ‘loving man with a big heart’. He loved history and teaching his daughters about it during their travels. He adored books, ‘fully absorbing every opinion’. Khashoggi’s daughters show that their father was not simply a journalist, but a human being who happened to be a journalist, as all true journalists are. An article like this keeps the memory of a murdered journalist alive because it fights the dehumanisation tactics used by their killer