On St Valentine's Day I dedicated my column in The Sunday Times to the not so St Valentine's spirited writings of Daphne Caruana Galizia about Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera. The myriad reactions one usually gets after such an article prove beyond doubt the validity of the reception theory proposed by academics such as the cultural theorist Stuart Hall. In simple terms, the theory says that audiences are not blotting papers which passively gulp in media texts. On the contrary, audiences negotiate with the text and can even give it an oppositional meaning to that the author intended. Our cultural and personal baggage undoubtedly influences our reading of media texts.

The full piece can be accessed from http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20100214/religion/unguilded-silence. I will here summarise and comment further.

One can legitimately object to the style used by Daphne Caruana Galizia. In fact, I wrote that a number of her posts are unacceptable and that her style was undermining her position. However, one cannot deny that she makes valid points (especially in her posting of February 4) and damning accusations about Magistrate Scerri Herrera. One now expects Daphne to prove some of them (some she already did) and to demonstrate the relevance of others to her contention that a magistrate cannot behave in this way and still function as a magistrate. I also expressed the opinion that that what went on in Daphne's commentaries cannot be ignored by the relevant authorities and the media.

The authorities took action

It seems that the juridical authorities were of a similar opinion to mine. They agreed that something had to be done.

On February 12 timesofmalta.com reported that Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici said that the Commission for the Administration of Justice has taken cognisance of the allegations made against Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera. For the results of this cognizance, we will have to wait and see. The Minister's statement, though, informed us of this new development. The other piece of information he gave i.e. the police were investigating following a request by the Magistrate, was already public knowledge.

Of greater interest than the Minister's statement, was the item posted on the web page of the Judiciary of Malta on February 15. This stated that "on Monday 8 February 2010 the Commission for the Administration of Justice approved an amendment, proposed by the Chief Justice in terms of rule 29 of the Code of Ethics for Members of the Judiciary, to have a new paragraph inserted in the Guidelines attached to the said Code under the heading "Social, cultural and other activities". The new paragraph, which incorporates the fourth "core value" of the Bangalore Principles of Judicial Conduct, reads as follows: Since propriety, and the appearance of propriety, are essential to the performance of all the activities of a judge, membership of 'social networking internet sites' is incompatible with judicial office. Such membership exposes the judge to the possibility of breach of the second part of rule 12 of the Code.

Those who followed Daphne's blogs since the last days of January know of the continuous reference she made to the use of social networks and of the many photos of Magistrate Consuelo Herrera she lifted from these networks and posted on her blogs. It is rather difficult to believe that this had no bearing on the ban that the Commission for the Administration of Justice has now placed on the Judiciary's use of these social networks.

Issues of interest to the media

Wherever you go, people are discussing this issue, taking, quite naturally, different sides. However, wonder of wonders, for the mainstream media it is as if nothing is happening. I find this silence quite strange or ungilded, as I pointed out in the title of this piece and that in The Sunday Times.

Let me outline a number of issues that the mainstream media should look into.

  1. What should be the relationship between the public life of public persons and their private lives? I will not repeat my comments in The Sunday Times about this subject? Has a line been crossed when some media make a feast day from a quarrel Daphne had with her husband? Is Daphne herself crossing a line with her comments about the Magistrate and her friends? The line I refer to is not necessarily the line demarcated by criminal law but a finer line demarcated by journalistic and other professional ethics.
  2. Were these stories of legitimate public interest? There is a difference between a story being of public interest and it being of interest to the public. The first refers to the public right's to know. The latter refers to the public's curiosity, which begets no rights. Information about criminal behaviour, gross misdemeanours or infringements of professional codes of ethics by public persons is normally considered to be within the public's right to know.
  3. Who is a public person? Daphne seems to adopt a restrictive definition and considers those being paid by public money as the qualifiers for such a title. Is not such a definition too restrictive? Are journalists to be considered as public figures? Moreover, what should one say of singers, artists and public performers whose public persona exists because the media continually nourishes it? Where do we draw the line?
  4. If private persons are participating in a legitimate activity together with public persons (whose participation, for the sake of the argument, goes against their professional code of ethics) should they (the private persons) be considered fair game for media reportage and comment?
  5. Should the posting of a photo on Facebook be treated as the posting of a photo on a public billboard? Or should Facebook be considered as a legitimate extension of one's sitting room? Could it be realistically considered to be the latter? Can it be used indiscriminately by the media or could it only be used where there is an overriding public interest?

How are the social media affecting the mainstream media in Malta? Is this form of communication, which in some cases takes the guise of citizen journalism, having an effect after all?

The list, undoubtedly, goes on. It should be elongated and discussed.

Silence in such issues is certainly not golden.

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