One of the things that horrifies me about life in the US is the gun killings at schools. That, and the fact that anyone over the age of 16 can go into a supermarket and buy a killing machine without even the need of a licence. “Can I have a Hershey bar, an ice-cream tub, some bubble gum, and, oh, a gun, please? That will be all, thanks.”

After yet another tragic shooting spree in a Florida school that left 17 dead, last week US President Donald Trump held a “listening session” with students who witnessed and survived the shooting.

At some point during the meet­ing, aimed at finding a solution to gun violence in schools, President Trump said that maybe teachers should also carry guns. Which left the rest of the world aghast: are American schools going to become an extension of Clint Eastwood’s Wild West movies?

The meeting also revealed something else, apart from the President’s worrying support for the gun lobby: photographer Ricky Carioti of the Washington Post took a picture of the notes Trump was holding in his hand and occasionally looking at during the meeting. The handwritten points included re­minders for the President to occasionally say: “What would you most want me to know about your experience?” and “I hear you”. 

Clearly the President needed re­minding to show some sort of empathy. And eerily, without the notes reminding him to do so, he would not have cared less about what the grieving people in front of him were telling him.

But before we rush to tsk-tsk and making the Sign of the Cross, let us remember that over here, the situation is not far better.

We too have a Prime Minister who is not keen on listening to what civil society has to say. Only he does not bother with empathy notes, he just tears up, or pulls down whatever messages people are trying to send him.

Why the close-up filming of a teenager grieving for her assassinated aunt? So that Super One viewers memorise her face and turn her, now, into an enemy of the State?

If the Prime Minister had any sense of empathy, last week he would have said something about the Planning Authority which, in a sudden and rare fit of conscience, decided to pull down billboards put up by #Occupyjustice in a desperate plea for rule of law in this country. A Prime Minister’s role is always to defend democracy, and to do that, first and foremost, he has to listen and to uphold freedom of speech.

And on this matter I call out the Institute of Maltese Journalists who back in October had made a whole song and dance about “not being silenced”. So is the IĠM okay with citizens being silenced?

Oh, and another thing, before issuing any statements about Super One journalists being obstructed from doing their work, perhaps the IĠM should send some scouts on site. Last Sunday, at the #Occupy­justice protest in front of Castille, I witnessed the Super One cameraman pointing the camera in the face of Daphne Caruana Galizia’s sisters, and even worse, in the face of her niece, who is still under the age of 17, who is not a public figure, but who clearly seems to be of interest to the viewers of Super One. The cameraman was barely 10cm away from their face. Why? What sort of journalism is that? I understand that a cameraperson has to jump into close-up action when the person is the story, but in this case what was the story? A teenager grieving for her assassinated aunt? Why the close-ups? So that Super One viewers memorise her face and turn a teenager, now, into an enemy of the State? 

Can the IĠM say something about this? Or can it not because its chairwoman, Norma Saliba, works for the national broadcaster TVM, which edits out crucial events if they are unfavourable to the government? Or can it not because all its other top administrative posts are taken up by ‘journalists’ working in political party media?

This is the cancer of Malta’s Fourth Estate – more than half of its media is taken over by political parties, and we all know that political party journalism is not journalism, it is marketing. To add insult to injury, our national broad­caster, instead of being independent like, say, the BBC, has its agenda dictated to it by whichever party is in government.

You know what? We’re sick of this; we’re sick of party television stations and self-proclaimed independent media houses that have clear ties to parties, trying to make us believe that Malta is the centre of the world, and that their political party is the centre of the universe.

Watching news on political stations right now, you’d notice that there is no coverage of the attack on freedom of speech. Clearly the aim is to lull people and make them forget that in a European country – our European country – a journalist has been killed.

They are telling us “uejjaforgetaboutitandmoveon”.

But the elected people in authority have been elected by us to represent us, and therefore, should only have one word to say: “I hear you.”

Perhaps our leaders could do well to look at Trump’s how-to-empathise note card.

krischetcuti@gmail.com
Twitter: @krischetcuti

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