‘Baby found in Sandwich’ makes for an attention-grabbing headline. Several questions immediately spring to mind about how a baby could be concealed in a sandwich.

Was it one of those massive sandwiches made in an effort to get a mention in the Guinness Book of World Records? Or would it have to be an especially tiny baby?

The answers are none of the above. The baby referred to in the headline – for it was a real headline in a Boston online newspaper – referred to a baby who had been kidnapped and subsequently found in the town of Sandwich.

So the headline was perfectly correct, but removed from the proper context it was totally misleading. Although the accompanying article clarified matters regarding the presence of babes in buns, it was still a bit of a let-down, expectations having been raised by the headline.

I had the same feelings when I read a report about a meeting EU Commissioner John Dalli had with a group of Maltese journalists. The item, which appeared in another newspaper, was headed, ‘John Dalli’s four-year sentence will end soon’. It went on to describe the way Dalli referred to his term as Commissioner as a “four-year sentence that will soon be up”.

The rest of the (very short) article basically strung out this reference to a “sentence” and Dalli’s non-committal answer about his plans post-Commission, in an attempt to create a whiff of political intrigue.

On reading the article, the impression that the average reader would get is of an embittered Dalli railing against the strictures of his office, moaning about his exile from Malta, and whiling away the brutality of Brussels, and briefing journalists about his date with destiny and a final showdown with Lawrence Gonzi.

All this is implied, of course, with nothing being spelt out, but with the heavy hinting that is the journalistic equivalent of ‘nudge, nudge, wink, wink’. As for his portfolio? It merited a brief mention, with a cursory nod at the Commissioner’s reference to e-health and the price of medicines.

The article’s main thrust was the portrayal of Dalli ticking off the days till he is freed from his Commission cell, to regain his rightful throne.

And it was totally misleading. Shorn off context, background information and with the intentional or lazy omission, of what took place before Dalli’s “sentence” statement, that article is as deceptive as the ‘Baby in sandwich’ headline.

I know because I was there, and the meeting was not the gripefest it was made out to be, but an informative one about Dalli’s portfolio, not his political ambitions.

I looked up my notes to see if I had missed out on the juiciest bit of the story. Hadn’t I noticed the ball and chain clanking around the Commissioner’s ankles?

Or perhaps the dartboard with Gonzi’s image? I must have. Because my notes spelt out a completely different account of things.

Oh yes, there was that comment about Dalli’s stint in Brussels being a “sentence”, and about not wanting to ride away into the sunset, but it took place at the very end of the hour-long meeting. It was said in a casual, half-joking tone and it was hardly startling news.

Was anybody expecting Dalli to take up knitting or start pottering around in a garden shed after his term has elapsed? Of course not.

In any case, he made the usual non-committal noises about his career post-Commission and spent the best part of an hour speaking about things that mattered or should matter to journalists.

He explained how the Commission was looking into how the rights of consumers ordering medicinals online could be safeguarded so that they could be sure they were purchasing genuine products.

Dalli also talked about e-health and about the social and economic benefits of investing in preventative medicine and about the results of a pilot study carried out in Germany which showed what great savings could be made in this regard.

He talked about the prohibition of misleading claims on food products, about genetically modified organisms, about the banning of baby bottles containing the potentially dangerous Bisphenol A chemical.

The challenges facing the different health professions were also discussed. The number of young people taking up these professions within the EU has decreased for a number of reasons and the Commission is trying to find ways of reversing this trend.

The topic of animal rights also came up, as did the 3,000 e-mails Dalli received after he spoke about testing on animals.

I think these issues are marginally more interesting than the prospect of a Dalli-Gonzi tussle in the future. Yet they were barely mentioned..

In some ways it reminds me of the kind of coverage The Daily Mail gives of EU affairs. Regardless of the complexities of the matters being discussed, the Mail would invariably come back with stories of Brussels bureaucrats riding the gravy train and issuing diktats banning bent bananas.

It’s the kind of reporting where journalists select those bits of news which fit into a pre-ordained media narrative. In the case of The Daily Mail, the bits are about barmy men in grey suits standardising banana shapes. In the case of most local journalists, it’s the Dalli-Gonzi ‘rivalry’.

Any information which doesn’t fit well within this narrative is discarded, no matter how newsworthy it may be.

Which explains why most Maltese are totally up-to-date as to the latest in the media-made Dalli-Gonzi soap opera, but don’t have a clue as to their rights as consumers or health service.

It’s largely due to some members of the Fourth Estate which may well be renamed the Failed Estate.

cl.bon@nextgen.net.mt