BBC World Editor ‘Deliberately Avoided’ Meeting Malta’s Prime Minister During Visit To Island
BBC’s world affairs editor has said he deliberately avoided meeting Prime Minister Joseph Muscat during a recent visit to Malta.
John Simpson was invited to Malta by financial services firm EY to give a talk about the future of news at its annual attractiveness event last week. However, he faced flak for accepting the invitation, with The Guardian’s media editor Jim Waterson noting that event also featured Muscat.
BBC World Affairs editor John Simpson deletes tweet about his (paid?) speech on “future of news” at event featuring prime minister of Malta. Same PM who is suing dead journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia for libel, while frustrating inquiry into her death: https://t.co/caOmeQw7sN pic.twitter.com/zWW7Bul35Q
— Jim Waterson (@jimwaterson) October 25, 2019
“The same Prime Minister who is suing dead journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia for libel, while frustrating inquiry into her death,” Waterson tweeted, while noting the Simpson had deleted a previous tweet in which he hailed Malta as a “delightful island”.
Caruana Galizia’s son Matthew Caruana Galizia also weighed in.
“How clueless do you have to be? Even if Malta were perfect his tweet is really patronising,” he said.
I was in Malta to give talk about the future of news. I deliberately avoided meeting the Maltese PM & discussed Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder with the UK High Commissioner and senior Maltese journalists. No whitewash of disturbing Maltese govt reaction to murder – OK?
— John Simpson (@JohnSimpsonNews) October 27, 2019
Rebecca Vincent, director of the Reporters Without Borders’ UK bureau, accused Simpson, as well as political strategist and writer Alastair Campbell, who was also at the event, of helping the Maltese government “whitewash its image whilst impunity for the assassination of a journalist continues two years on”.
“Did they raise the case of Daphne Caruana Galizia?’ she asked.
To this, Simpson responded that he deliberately avoided meeting Muscat and that he discussed Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder with the UK High Commissioner and senior Maltese journalists.
“No whitewash of disturbing Maltese government reaction to murder – OK?” he said.
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