The editors of the main two papers in English are engaged in an exchange of views, which some would call forthright, except they haven't started swinging handbags, yet. The point at issue is whether the name of a priest who is being prosecuted for sexual misconduct should have been published.
The folk at The Malta Independent think they were right in forging ahead, the guys at the Times of Malta stand by their decision not to. I don't hold a brief for Times of Malta, for all that I write for it, but I think they're right, though perhaps not entirely for all the same reasons used by its editor. The Malta Independent were wrong to publish the name.
For me, the question is fundamental and it revolves around the reactions that news reports generate, specifically those from the courts.
These reactions used to be discerned from the letters pages back in the day or from overheard conversations in bars and on the church parvis. Today, like a particular anatomical attribute, everyone has one: an opinion, I mean. All it takes is access to a keyboard and the 'net to express it. If it is not vulgar beyond limits or downright illegal, it will probably be published.
The abysmal levels of ignorance, the mind-boggling degree of intolerance, the sheer crassness of the thoughts expressed demonstrate beyond a shadow of doubt that the concepts of fairness and equality (and presumed innocence) before the law are alien to vast tracts of the population.
If the accused (or in this case, the exposed, as when The Malta Independent published the name, the priest hadn't even been formally charged) looks or is thought to look dodgy, then he might as well be chucked into the Corradino Hilton for all of time and a day. On the other hand, if someone manages to spread the notion that he's not really a bad man, then the Police will be pilloried for daring to attack an innocent man.
The bottom line is simple: people are innocent until found guilty but huge chunks of the population appear to lack the intellectual capacity to grasp this. Idle prurience and the tendency to gossip and pontificate should not be pandered to by the media houses, who need to take the higher moral ground and stop grubbing for readers.
And let's have no guff and bluster about society and its children needing to be protected from predators, shall we? There are ways of doing this that do not involve (happily defunct) News of the World sensationalism.