In a few days Joseph Muscat will address a huge crowd in Valletta. It is this crowd, he has said, that will be the proper answer to the Daphne Project – the project involving 18 international media organisations and 45 journalists intent on bringing to completion all the stories that Daphne Caruana Galizia was working on at the time of her assassination.

How’s that for a self-styled liberal, progressive government? Mobilise a crowd and fire it up against the press. Not just the international press, mind you. This newspaper is part of the enterprise.

What has the Daphne Project said that requires a show of force? Three things, so far.

First, there’s been a lot of background given on Caruana Galizia’s assassination. Nothing that isn’t fair and balanced. It has included Muscat’s written statements (he hasn’t given interviews) about the accusations levelled at him.

Naturally, the background includes the harassment Caruana Galizia received over the years, as well as questions concerning what the police have and have not done. The international press routinely covers police competence and incompetence in any country of interest.

Next, the Daphne Project has served, at least so far, to confirm several points that Caruana Galizia wrote about Pilatus Bank: individual Azeri clients, themselves widely accused of corruption, and money transfers.

Once more, it’s been fair and balanced reporting, with (say) The Guardian seeking to report the clients’ side of the story, and pointedly stating it is not suggesting that Muscat was involved.

Third, the Daphne Project has brought to light the documentation concerning the Dubai-based company 17 Black, its suspicious deposits, and the correspondence showing that it was meant to be a ‘client’ for the Panama companies respectively owned by Keith Schembri, Muscat’s chief of staff, and the (now) tourism minister, Konrad Mizzi.

Once more, the reporting has been fair and balanced. Schembri’s reply was reported, as was Mizzi’s denial that he knew anything about 17 Black. Meanwhile, Nexia BT, the pair’s financial advisors, declared that they had done nothing illegal or improper.

There’s a case for saying the reporting has even been restrained. To my knowledge, no one has pointed out that what Mizzi is saying flatly contradicts Nexia BT. If Mizzi knew nothing about 17 Black, and that his Panama company was not meant to have clients, then his Nexia BT advisor, Karl Cini, did act improperly in including Mizzi’s company in the correspondence relating to 17 Black.

Indeed, it adds to Cini’s unusual case of prolonged confusion with regard to Mizzi. If you believe the latter, it was Cini who  enabled Mizzi to open a Panama company – a structure that was not only unsuited for Mizzi’s stated purpose but also a grave political mistake that cost Mizzi the deputy leadership of his political party.

It was Cini who, throughout the saga of seeking to open a bank account for Mizzi’s Panama company, confused poor Konrad with Schembri. Cini even acted, we were told, without authorisation.

It now seems that Cini also thought Mizzi had the same target client and same projected payments as Schembri.

How lucky Cini is not to be sued for malpractice and damages by Mizzi. How strange, therefore, that Nexia BT continues to tempt the fates by insisting it isn’t even guilty of bad advice, confusion and unauthorised action badly damaging its client.

As long as this discrepancy isn’t cleared up, however, it is not open for Mizzi to insist that the allegations are ‘unfounded’. Not when he’s protecting the auditor he’s blaming for the mess.

Nor is it open for Schembri to insist – as he did when the Panama Papers first broke – that the documentation was being maliciously misinterpreted for political purposes.

At the time, he and the Labour machine were accusing one of Australia’s foremost financial journalists, Neal Chenoweth, of being in league with Matthew Caruana Galizia. Are we now to believe that a distinguished list of media organisations – from Reuters to Die Zeit, from The Guardian to The New York Times, from France 2 to Sueddeutsche Zeitung – are ready to sacrifice their reputations on the basis of documents that can be judged independently by their readers and viewers?

If the documentation is flimsy, the reports will automatically seem malicious to those readers and viewers who know a thing or two about the business – the very same who are following the Daphne Project reports and letting them guide their investment decisions.

The press is the forum for determining political responsibility

So presumably there is something in the reports that does require an explanation we’re not getting.

Confronted with journalistic investigations, it is usual for governments to provide answers in the interests of transparency. The press is seen as a pillar of liberal democracy not because it’s to be treated as a political adversary but because it’s a watchdog.

The press does not replace the courts. The latter determine criminal responsibility – accountability at law. The press is the forum for determining political responsibility – accountability to the public over behaviour that may be legal but irresponsible.

Sometimes a media organisation gets it wrong, though I know of no case in which 18 did on the same case. But usually it’s shown to be wrong by a confrontation with arguments and evidence.

What is unusual in a truly free society is for the force of truth to be replaced with a show of force – for a crowd to be the answer to the press. It’s only a short step away from saying might is right.

But then we have seen other short steps taken. We have very quickly moved from seeing Caruana Galizia labelled a ‘hate blogger’ – not really a journalist, hence deserving special treatment – to seeing the Maltese and international investigative press treated as Labour’s political adversary.

It was also by a series of short steps that Muscat has managed public anger over the Panama Papers.

When the story first broke, he first acted as though opening a company in Panama was perfectly normal.

When the anger persisted, he said it was a mistake, though perfectly understandable.

When that still did not quell disquiet within Labour ranks, he said he had no facts yet – although he was worried, too.

Then he said that he was hurt personally by the affair, although there was nothing wrong done, but a rebuke was needed. So Mizzi was made to resign from being deputy leader, when Muscat could have stopped him from running (because he claims he was told about the Panama company around three weeks before).

Now, two years on, he’s ready to turn the anger against those who persist in investigating the new documentation rising to the surface.

ranierfsadni@europe.com