Last week, I dropped in on Carm Mifsud Bonnici, who was about to undergo surgery.
It was on the day that Labour's media carried the story about how Mifsud Bonnici was to be shuffled out of office with the state of his health being used as an excuse. I don't recall or care which particular element was involved but don't tell me that there's any other description than "Labour's media" for the Union Press/MaltaToday/One conglomerate - I can't tell the difference between them.
CMB was not exactly worried about this piece of filth, to put it mildly, which of course he needn't have been, but in the context of the wider implications of the story (and you could add "fairy" in front of the word if you like) there is quite a bit which is disturbing.
The story came days after the editor in the MaltaToday stable, Julia Farrugia, was found guilty by the Press Ethics Commission of lapsing seriously from the expected ethical standards. Incidentally, she appears unable to grasp the simple concept that one should stop digging when one is in a hole, if Sunday's Times is anything to go by. The CMB story further demonstrates that for Labour's media, ethics and journalistic standards are fine to talk about but very inconvenient to abide by, so they can be left to one side.
The story also came not many days after Labour's bright (well, that's what she was touted as) young thing Nikita Alamango was outed as a shameless plagiariser and banished from the serious media, but it was not a result of this sort ineptness and general shoddiness of what passes for journalism on the Labour side of the spectrum.
Make no mistake about it, the CMB story was not put out by mistake, because its creators weren't aware that he was in hospital awaiting serious surgery: they knew, they must have. In fact, if it was a mistake (which no-one has said it was as far as I know) the situation would perhaps be more alarming, because it would show beyond a doubt that the people who want to run this country can't even run their own PR machine.
The CMB story simply confirmed a stark fact about Labour's media: its operators do not care whether they wound, who they wound and how they wound, as long as what they see as their agenda is fulfilled.
Joseph Muscat, who leads the party, even if the diplomatic community may doubt the strength of his grasp on the throne, has the responsibility, which I doubt he will live up to, to change this, because it is by their media that they are perceived, and the only possible current perception, unless you are of the stripe that the comments below will no doubt betray, is that Labour remains unfit for purpose, for many of the same reasons that have seen them lose election after election since 1981.