With a flip, and a flop, and a flippety-flop...

As someone who contributed directly to the media kerfuffle surrounding Caroline Muscat’s decision to quit journalism and head the PN’s electoral campaign... it may sound contradictory for me to say that the ensuing fuss was mostly a storm in a teacup.

Still, in my defence I can add this: I am certainly not the only one to publicly contradict myself from one day to the next. The Nationalist Party itself (whose PR Caroline will shortly be handling) seems to be trying to set a whole new world record when it comes to political flip-flopping. Indeed, it has taken to contradicting itself so much of late, that journalists are starting to doubt whether to even bother reporting any PN statement at all... or just wait for the later, contradictory statement that will inevitably follow, and spare themselves the hassle of a printed retraction.

For instance: over the last few months (but especially days), PN sources have repeatedly bombarded us with the message that the LNG tanker in Marsaxlokk posed a risk comparable to ‘60 Hiroshimas’... and even (incredibly) to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of the 1980s, which left an area the size of half Europe uninhabitable to this very day.

Yet just last Thursday, the same party’s president (no less) suddenly turned around and assured us that “[she] never said LNG was dangerous”.

Hmm. Let’s see how this claim actually stands up to reality, shall we? This is what Dr Anne Fenech wrote in an article in The Times dated August 7:

“The very idea of having an LNG ship of those dimensions bang in the middle of a commercial harbour brimming with activity, without a protective breakwater, is frankly mad. That activity includes an oil storage facility, a Freeport which today welcomes the largest container carriers in the world, a substantial private fishing fleet, an aquaculture centre, bunkering facilities, the BWSC power station and the new power station itself, together with the resident popu¬lation of Birzebbugia and Marsaxlokk...”

In case that wasn’t unambiguous enough, Dr Fenech made it abundantly clear (in the same article) that she considers the primary danger associated with LNG to be the possibility of an explosion: “What if there is an ignition source such as in a collision, or any other incendiary – fireworks perhaps – then what? Then we will have a tragedy of disastrous proportions....”

Funny, isn’t it, how a tanker full of a gas that Anne Fenech ‘never said was dangerous’, could – according to the same Anne Fenech – also cause a ‘tragedy of disastrous proportions’? Perhaps the definition of ‘danger’ has changed in the two months since she wrote that article. Or perhaps we have just witnessed a flip-flop of such colossal proportions, that to call it a ‘flip-flop’ would actually be unfair on the popular summer footwear of the same name.

It’s more like the mother of all wooden Swiss clogs. Try wearing a pair on your feet, and you’d probably sink through the tarmac...

Yet it is but one small example of several. Consider PN leader Simon Busuttil’s miraculously changing opinion about the morning-after pill, for instance. On Wednesday, he told The Times that “this agreement [i.e., to restrict sale of MAP by prescription only] represents a finely balanced compromise that was carved out among all MPs present after lengthy debates and negotiations. As such, it is a compromise that deserves to be supported, and he [Busuttil] adds his support to it.”

This one is perhaps less immediately categorical, but the implications are nonetheless abundantly clear. After all, one only lends support to things one agrees with. Or at least, that’s how it normally works out here in the real world.

In politics, however, different rules apply. The following day – i.e., after his ill-judged comment rightly provoked outrage on the worldwide web – Busuttil predictably issued an equal but opposite statement. Like Anne Fenech before him, he denied ever saying what he had only just said. He doesn’t disagree with over-the-counter availability of MAP. It’s just that he threw his entire party’s political weight behind the clean opposite decision, that’s all...

As for his own personal view on the issue, it is “that this is a decision for the Medicines Authority”.

Erm... sorry to interject, but: how can a decision taken by others possibly be described a ‘personal view’? The question Dr Busuttil was asked was not ‘who should take the decision?’ It was: ‘what do YOU personally think the decision should be?”

And it’s an important distinction, too. Any old politician can simply abdicate responsibility and leave it to others to decide in his stead. But it’s not what we elect politicians to do, is it?

In the absence of any clearer indicator, we can only conclude that Busuttil’s personal view is the one reflected in his parliamentary vote. The alternative would be to conclude that the Opposition leader supports things with which he disagrees; and that is not a very encouraging thought, given that he could be Prime Minister tomorrow.

Nor is this the only contradiction. Pressed to clarify his apparent flip-flop, Busuttil helpfully explained: “My position on the morning-after pill has been clear: if it is not abortive there should be no issue with making it readily available.”

Right: so I guess that the adverb ‘readily’ must have gone the way of ‘never’, and ended up meaning the precise opposite. When something is ‘readily available’, it means (or used to mean) that there is no hurdle or barrier placed in the way of actually obtaining it. In the same context, you would describe Panadol or Aspirin as ‘readily available’. Antibiotics, on the other hand, are not ‘readily available’ in Malta. You need a prescription for those... which places them in the same category as the morning-after pill, thanks to a decision supported by Simon Busuttil.

But in any case. If the subject is politicians’ contradicting themselves, I could carry on all day. In fact I will carry on a little further, because it has become customary – in this weird place – to feel compelled to extend criticism of any one political party to all other parties, too. And even though, when you think about it, this self-imposed media convention makes not an iota of sense... it never ceases to actually work, given how little the two parties actually differ in practically any aspect.

 So if you want to consult the official catalogue of Labour’s fancy flip-flops – of which it is now the proud owner of an entire intergalactic footwear department store – one need look no further than its 2013 election manifesto. One of the chapters was entitled ‘We will guarantee more accountability and transparency’. Yeah, I thought that was kind of amusing, too...

But like I said, I could go on all day. Let us return to my own apparent flip-flop regarding Caroline Muscat’s career move. When I wrote, on my Facebook wall, that it was a ‘loss for Maltese journalism’, I was actually thinking out loud in my own capacity as a Maltese journalist. Which represents a vastly different perspective from that of the rest of the country. To anyone not involved in that tiny microcosm... then no, it’s no great loss whatsoever. People change jobs all the time. Why they choose to do so, or where they take up employment afterwards, is of nobody else’s concern.

That is all perfectly true on the surface. But my concern (unlike most others) is not what the move entails for Caroline Muscat herself... or for the PN, or Labour for that matter. It is the implications for the profession she chose to leave.

From this perspective, her precise reasons for leaving become important. In announcing her decision, she said that “I am giving up my career in journalism because I have been left with little doubt that this government is riddled with corruption.”

The implications are disquieting, to people involved in the sector. As journalists, we kid ourselves that we play an important role in the democratic process. The fourth pillar is meant to act as a custodian of the public interest: we make public that which others want to remain hidden.

As I remarked in that post: The Panama Papers scandal was exposed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists; NOT the International Consortium of Political Party Campaign Managers.

So if her decision to leave journalism was motivated by a desire to expose corruption... what does it tell us about the media’s effectiveness at a task which should be its defining characteristic? It tells me that something is deeply wrong with the entire journalism landscape in this country. And, indirectly, it also points towards precisely that.

Without going into the merits of her decision itself, Caroline Muscat’s move is symptomatic of a general momentum away from journalism, and towards public relations (mostly in politics). A full list of journalists who left the profession to take up overtly political roles – either working for a party, or as a handpicked attaché within a government ministry – would not fit in this entire newspaper. Clearly, there is a level at which a career in journalism is viewed primarily as a stepping stone for a career in politics.

And that is not merely a different vocation from journalism. It is the precise antithesis of journalism, and as such it explains why the profession has largely failed in this country. Nobody can take the media seriously as a custodian of the public interest, if its protagonists – just like the two political parties – suddenly turn into their opposites, without anyone even batting an eyelid.

It undermines the credibility of the entire platform. Under such circumstances, the ‘fourth pillar’ cannot even hold itself upright, let alone keep aloft the entire political system.

Of course, there are other associated problems. As the PN’s new campaign manager, Caroline Muscat will be spending at least three million euros, acquired through secret loans from undisclosed sources. We don’t know who contributed to this campaign fund through the Cedoli scheme; nor how much each contribution was worth. How does that square up with the principles of accountability and transparency? How can one fight corruption, while spending money that (for all we know) could easily have come from corrupt sources, or be tied to future favours once the PN is safely in power?

A journalist would find these questions difficult to answer. A politician, on the other hand, will answer them simply thus:

With a flip, and a flop, and a flippety-flop...