There Are Some Things We Simply Cannot Ignore About The Private Lives Of Politicians
Voters have the right to know that the Opposition leader is going through a critical time in his private life. And the media has a duty to keep the public informed in a timely manner because these matters should not be left to the rumour realm of WhatsApp threads. They need to be dealt with a sense of dignity, transparency and respect for the truth.
When I was 17, I told my two best friends I’m gay. Three days later, my third closest friend – somebody I knew since my very first day of school – heard my very intimate news from a person I did not even know. That’s Malta for you, I thought.
But that was Malta in 2004, before the iPhone, before WhatsApp, before the ubiquity of cameras. If we thought word used to spread fast then, today it happens at nothing short of lightning speed.
And that’s why you probably heard about the Opposition leader and his wife separating even before anybody in the press shared the news. A friend probably sent it to you on a group thread, probably the same thread that recently served you an illegal video of a young woman engaging in oral sex.
I heard the sad news about Adrian Delia and Nickie Vella De Fremeaux’s separation quite a few days ago and as editor of one of Malta’s biggest news platforms, I knew this was a story we could simply not ignore.
Still, I was afraid to pull the trigger. I was concerned about the couple’s five young children and the consequences this would have on their wellbeing. I was also concerned about the couple themselves and did not want to add to their troubles. This is not something you want to happen to anyone after 17 years of marriage, let alone a couple who seemed to exude such passion and love for one another.
I spoke to Adrian Delia a few days ago, as I tried to process whether or not to publish the story. He confirmed that Nickie filed a legal letter for separation, the very first step in a separation procedure. He told me I was free to write the story and he even acknowledged that this was something in the public interest. “I know this is your job. And I’m not about to start living a lie,” he told me, acknowledging that it would be ridiculous to hide a separation from the public.
But he also asked me to give him time because he was going to do all he could to save his marriage. I respected his request. I told him I would hold the story for the time being but that word would spread fast and there would come a time when we would no longer be able to ignore it. I’m sure the rest of the editors in Malta knew what was happening and took a similar decision.
Today, blogger Manuel Delia took a different decision. He decided to break the news himself. He erred on the side of public interest. He did what Daphne Caruana Galizia would have undoubtedly done the day it happened, had she still been alive.
He accepted that his job is not to protect the private lives of politicians but to keep the public informed. Even when it’s difficult to do so. Even when you know it could hurt a family. Even when you know people could admonish you for not respecting their privacy.
I’m glad he did. Somebody had to. Rumours were already spreading like wildfire and it’s simply not right for matters like these to remain in the ugly realm of rumour. Much less when this was not just a rumour. It’s a fact that could have serious repurcussions on the Opposition leader’s ability to be an effective Opposition leader.
“Rumours were already spreading like wildfire and it’s simply not right for matters like these to remain in the ugly realm of rumour. Much less when this was not just a rumour. It’s a fact that could have serious repurcussions on the Opposition leader’s ability to be an effective Opposition leader.”
To say the least, it has consequences on his ability to mount a strong enough challenge to the government’s Budget and on his capacity to dedicate enough time to preparing for the MEP election. And depending on what caused the separation, it could also have other consequences on how voters should look at Delia – not just negative consequences at that.
But how should we deal with such stories in the future? Should we all do what Manuel Delia did? In every instance?
Privacy in public life is something that is dealt with differently depending on a country’s culture. In Malta, our press has a long-standing tradition of respecting privacy and straying away from anything that could remotely be interpreted as tabloidy. Very often we left it to Daphne Caruana Galizia to break such stories and then follow them up from a high-horse position. In the post-Daphne era, the press needs do some serious introspection about how to deal with privacy of people who put themselves in the public eye. We now have to take those decisions ourselves.
Ultimately, I believe a voter is always richer with information rather than without it. Voters deserve to know that Adrian Delia and his wife are going through a separation. Just like we deserve to know whether Nationalist MEP David Casa does regular cocaine binges as alleged. And whether Economy Minister Chris Cardona socialises with notorious criminals, allegedly goes to brothels and spends a fortune on booze when abroad on government business.
Stories like these will undoubtedly be used as an opportunity by certain politicians to criticise the free press and accuse publications like this one of chasing clicks or being sensational. But that sort of intimidation should not stop us from doing our job. It’s something we must actively fight back.
Sure, there are times we must draw a line, although it’s often difficult to determine where. We must also strive to fact-check our information and question our sources. We must do our utmost to speak to the protagonists of our stories and get their side of the story before publishing. And we must be careful not to go overboard.
But ultimately, our job is to keep the public informed. And we must do so in a timely manner, especially in the WhatsApp era. Voters need to have reliable sources that separate fact from fiction before fiction becomes fact.
The media is far from infallible. We were an example of that this week when we embarrassingly published the wrong photo of a 17-year-old accused of attempted murder. We need to own up to our mistakes, correct them and find ways to prevent them from happening again. But with all our flaws, we must be truth-seekers on behalf of a public that deserves to be informed. That is our job and we must do it with pride. Most importantly, we must always do it in good faith.
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