The first batch of votes had barely been flipped over and counting had hardly started when the signs that it was an obvious Labour victory began filtering through. And that’s when the PN post-mortems started. Wave upon wave of political analysis, recriminations – all with the handy prop of hindsight.

The post-mortems ranged from the sensible to the maudlin and melodramatic. From the rational admission that the tone of the PN’s campaign message was not effective to over-the-top angstiness of “the Maltese are so corrupt. No wonder they vote for corruption. I’m so ashamed to be Maltese”.

Not many have highlighted that the seeds of this crushing PN defeat were sown long ago – back in 2008. At that point the PN had already been in government for 10 years. It was jaded, tired and it showed. More to the point, the party was more of an extension to government. Its key exponents were ministers, consultants or sucking on the public teat in some capacity or other.

There wasn’t an organisational set-up for the party as a stand-alone structure. Financing of the party depended on donations, which in turn made it vital for the PN to remain in government at all costs. Because let’s face it – donors will hedge their bets by backing both parties, but the lion’s share of cash is always going to be given to the party in power to secure contracts and favours.

The PN made no provision for a system that was fair for all – even parties in opposition. Its financial and organisational survival depended on remaining in government at all costs. This explains the ridiculous, desperate JPO-Mistragate stratagem – a last-minute pre-electoral stunt based on a lie.

The PN won that election on the basis of that stunt – but at a horrific cost. It earned the distrust of wide sections of the electorate and lost the opportunity to regroup and re-assemble. A truly Pyrrhic victory.

Konrad Mizzi has lived to take over another ministerial portfolio in the absolution-by-election process which has substituted clean politics

■ The huge Labour majority must have come as sweet relief to many, but none more so than Konrad Mizzi. Any dip in the number of votes for Labour would have been blamed on him – the Labour wonderkid turned albatross. It would have truly been a case of hero to zero in three short years.

As it is, he has lived to take over another ministerial portfolio in the absolution-by-election process which has substituted clean politics. Being elected may have given him a political lifeline but not the cloak of invisibility. His future actions will be subject to extreme press scrutiny, so he’s going to have to be either spectacularly successful and scrupulously honest or spectacularly successful and very good at concealing any offshore accounts he’ s thinking of populating. Will he be able to take the strain?

■ Besides the Labour-owned media houses and a few other journalists, most media exponents endorsed the PN in this electoral campaign. This is simply the exercise of the right to freedom of expression and association. It was out of line for the Orizzont to mention specific journalists who were said to be Nationalist-leaning. As long as bias is declared beforehand, it is perfectly on board.

What is not acceptable and disrespectful to readers is cherry-picking stories and reports to depict either party in a negative light or selective editing or framing of news items. Refusing to publish opinion surveys  is a disservice to the public – though perfectly legal – it speaks volumes about the way certain media houses do not trust their readers to come to their own conclusion.

Another potential pitfall of journalists turning campaigners is that they then tend to bolster their own view when seeing what their fellow journalists are saying or supporting. This could possibly lead to the sort of echo chamber situation where one view is being amplified and is presumed to have more weight than it actually does.

Tony Blair’s spin doctor, Alistair Campbell, made this observation regarding media disconnect in the Brexit and Trump campaigns: “What has most of our broadcast media become? Journalists talking  about what other journalists say. Commentators reviewing on TV what they and others said in the papers. Newsreaders telling you what commentators are saying on Twitter. Media outlets with more space to fill and fewer journalists to fill it. This is tailor made for a Trump or Brexit campaign, storming social media, overwhelming mainstream media.

“Most reporting is done from the desk and less on the ground. The antennae picking up and understanding social change are less alive. Easy talk is prioritised over news-gathering because it’s cheaper, but not necessa­rily well informed. In elections, it has spawn­ed over-reliance on phone and online polls – now proven unreliable, yet still relied upon.”

I find this to be quite true of the situation in this past electoral campaign. Most media outlets were emphasising social media ex­changes and actions of media personalities, without being on the ground enough. Ultimately, this led to under-reporting of public sentiment and to media/public disconnect.

drcbonello@gmail.com

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.