Looking back with pride

It is a long-standing tradition of MaltaToday at Christmastime to analyse the happenings of the previous 12 months and to peer into the new year. 

Today’s special edition focuses on 2023, which was the first year after the general election and one in which surveys confirmed a growing despondency with politics. It was also a year in which inflation took a bigger bite out of people’s pockets and the middle class struggled to keep up with its standard of living. 

Despite moments of joy in the worlds of sports and culture – the national women’s football team gained promotion in the Nations League and the Maltese festa was inscribed as a world heritage by UNESCO – the overall outlook for 2023 has been a negative one. 

The international climate remains unstable with the Ukraine war grinding to a stalemate and a new conflict opening up between Israel and Hamas that risks destabilising the Middle East. 

There may be little to toast about as 2023 comes to an end but today’s edition gives us the opportunity to revisit some of the salient issues and events in Malta. We look back to understand the past and determine how this could shape the future. 

But planning and executing an edition that tries to capture the essence of the previous 12 months, inevitably makes us realise the volume of stories we have produced in a bid to keep readers informed. It is impossible to highlight everything but an edition like this is also an occasion to reflect on our job as journalists. 

We often ask ourselves what is the raison d’etre of our job. The plain and simple answer is that we have a duty to report because people have a right to know. And we try to achieve this in the most effective way across our print and digital platforms. 

In 2023, MaltaToday not only reported on current affairs but lived up to its mission to analyse happenings by putting them into context and seeking different opinions to present readers with an array of views. We also collaborated with international partners on two cross-border investigations – the murder in Malta of Josef Rivas, which was linked to Romanian prostitution rings, and the questionable collaboration of the Maltese army and Frontex with a Libyan militia known for breaching human rights. 

Our journalists have asked the questions that mattered, sought answers, chased politicians, tried to understand the subtext, and analysed what was said and what was left unsaid. We also continued with our two-decades-old tradition of conducting regular surveys that captured the public mood and helped shape the national agenda. 

We have also earned our share of verbal abuse from those who felt wronged by what we wrote, even if it exposed their wrongdoing or provided a critical view of what they said or did. 

The courts gave the thumbs up to our reportage on former prison director Alex Dalli’s unorthodox disciplinary measures and on more than one occasion threw out libel cases he filed against our journalists. 

Journalists across the board often end up receiving flak on social media from people who would rather shoot the messenger than understand the message. We have come to accept this as a job hazard although it does take its toll on the mental wellbeing of journalists. Indeed, a few have even called it a day from the profession because of this pressure. 

But there are limits to the abuse journalists should endure and when red lines are crossed the law and the authorities should be there to protect journalists and their work. 

In 2023, our journalists performed to the best of their abilities to tell the story behind the story and it is a commitment we will take forward in the years to come. 

This leader may appear self-congratulatory – it is and unashamedly so. On this one occasion as we reflect back on 2023, we also take pride in our work and what we have achieved. We raise a toast to our journalists and thank our loyal readers for their support. 

From all of us at MaltaToday, we wish you a happy Christmas.