RTK journalist sacked after publication of email exchange

Church media house terminate employment of former acting editor over publication of long-term correspondence with Opposition leader.

20 October 2011, 12:00am
by Matthew Vella

3 min read

Church media house Media Centre has sacked its former acting editor Sabrina Agius, after copies of her private email conversation with Opposition leader Joseph Muscat were published by Nationalist party media and became the subject of hacking allegations raised by Joseph Muscat in parliament.

Agius, who was already pursuing a complaint against Media Centre in the industrial tribunal, was unavailable for comment.

Muscat has asked the Speaker to investigate the leak of private correspondence between him and a journalist employed with Church radio RTK, claiming the Nationalist media are in possession of a long-term exchange of emails.

Muscat said this was an illegal act of hacking and theft of information. “I am asking you to investigate the actions of the Prime Minister’s party, and the decimation of democracy and liberty in our country,” Muscat said. “There is a parallel secret service investigating the media in a bid to blackmail them. Nobody is going to scare us or stop us from doing our job."

It is unclear whether the email conversation, between Agius's private gmail account and Muscat's private account were lifted directly from a personal computer or hacked in externally.

The emails show Muscat in a long-term correspondence with RTK journalist Sabrina Agius over various subjects, suggestions for PQs, injustice she says she was facing on her workplace, her criticism of the Labour media, and a discussion over her journalistic career.

Muscat said he suggested he encouraged her to apply for jobs with the Public Broadcasting Services. “The spin from people close to the Prime Minister was that I was seeking to place her into this employment. I never entered into the engagement of termination of employment of this person, but the assertion that I have influence on the Times or PBS is laughable.

“After having failed to spin this allegation by getting the independent media to carry it, a PN journalist asked me today whether I was seeking placements for people in the media,” Muscat said.

Deputy prime minister Tonio Borg denied the allegations. “We have nothing to hide and we have no objection to this investigation.”

The head of Net News Nathaniel Attard has released a 14-page document [READ EMAILS HERE] containing excerpts of the email exchanges between Muscat and Sabrina Agius. The conversations relate to brief exchanges on Labour's delivery of its political message during the divorce referendum, and Agius's own problems on her workplace.

Nathaniel Attard denied procuring the privileged conversations illegally and that the emails were not from the government domain, suggesting that the provenance of the emails could have been from either the Opposition leader’s or Sabrina Agius’s personal systems.

In his statement, Attard said the emails were “of public interest” and threw “a clear light” on how the Opposition leader used Sabrina Agius “for his political ends”. He said the emails were procured “in a way that did not breach the law”.

Sabrina Agius, the former acting editor of Church radio RTK, is currently pursuing an industrial relations claim against her employers, over unfair and discriminatory treatment during a selection process to be appointed editor.

Agius responded to an internal call for applications for editor of RTK and Gensillum online but was not picked for the role. The position was later advertised in an external call for applications, leading to the engagement of former Net News journalist Josianne Camilleri as the new head of news.

Matthew Vella, a freelance journalist at MaltaToday, was formerly executive editor at Malt...

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I Fenech I was going to rubbish your comments but then i thought why waste time on such an idiotic moron.

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So what about the data protection act, where dose it feature in all this? As I so dumb to understand please explain.

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@ I Fenech . You ask whether “…all Labour are so dumb”. . If you ever bother to think, you might wish to ask yourself why, in 1987, your beloved “partito” promoted the police officer commanding the SMU. Just to refresh your memory, SMU was the police unit who your “kameradi” always accuse of using tear gas against them at Zejtun. . Have you never bothered to ask yourself why promote the guy, rather than hold him accountable for the actions of his team? . Have you ever wondered why, after years and years of character assassination against Lorry Sant, your partito had some retired judge carry out an inquiry into the alleged corruption carried out by Sant. The judge completed his inquiry, presented his report to your “kapi” and they sat on it for years until it became prescribed at law. . Why did they sit on it, when they could have held Sant accountable for his actions? . Or was it all lies?? . Howe dumb can you Nats be, especially when listening to Austin Gatt blame the farce that is Smart City on MEPA. . Why has not Gonzi demanded that MEPA’s chairman, Walker resign – after all, he is on a salary of Euros 90,000 annually. Yet his people, according to Austin Gatt, have seriously jeopardized the employment of 5,600 IT people. . If these are the farcical politics and politicians that you support, then you are dumber than all of us put together. . Go on, go stuff your snout in that trough whilst you can, because things will change, sooner or later, they will change!

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This hacking scandal has nothing to do with the PN. This is RTK's doing. It's so obvious that RTK management wanted rid of silly Sabrina. Emailing from work was her downfall. All she had to do was leave her gmail account logged in. The cookies on the company computer that she used to send her little notes to Joey would've saved her username and password. Any Tom, Dick or Fr Joe could've then gone through her email account and found these dodgy emails. All that person had to do then was circulate the emails to Lou, Sav, Daph or Net News. RTK management hacked her email. Not Gonzi. It's so obvious.

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The PN is learning, much to its great horror, that what is good for the goose is good for the gander. Still I need to be convinced that there will ever be a time when the PL will manage to reach the level of 'excellence' in the art of 'spying' reached by the PN throughout the years. Obviously, the financial gaps between the two parties and the power of incumbency both favouring the ruling PN can only add to the troubling concerns being felt by the democracy and freedom loving individuals.

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I Fenech I tough you would scribble what you scribbled because you PN apologists have become too preventible because rather then boasting on the PN achievements you attack the Labour Party on their past. We are more interested on the present and the future rather then the past because the past cannot be changed but the present and especially the future can be changed. So let us have a look at the current's administration achievements as you PN apologists call them. We could start with the public transport reform, Smart City, never ending waiting lists at Mater Dei, a new power station running on HFO which exceeds the carbon footprint limits imposed by the European Union, the inability to control inflation and lots and lots more. Those like you that are so blinded by blue cannot realized that there is a great gap between what is said and what is actually done. And I am not the only one saying this, earlier this week the European Union told the Government that there is a great difference from talking and acting visa-vi the implementation of projects like Smart city.

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Waqa' l-ass - meta ma jkollhomx argumenti jsemmu s-70s u l-80s. PS: Lanqas fi żmien La Valletta ma kellna komputers - imissu jistħii.

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@ Stephen B and Gianni Borg Oh yes, I will remind you of the glorious days of the 70s and 80s under Labour. Here it goes: We didn't have a problem with hacking then. Labour was against computer technology because it thought computers would cost jobs, rather than create them. One of Mintoff's wisdom choices and foresight, I suppose. Under Labour, we didn't have a problem with ethics, democracy, the press, or with some Times reporter getting sacked. Labour gutted The Times building and solved all problems at one go. Are you suffering from dementia or are all Labour really so dumb?

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@ I Fenech No they cannot, or will not think....as long as it is against the Church and the Government...

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I Fenech As you seem to be the expert so I must assume that there is nothing wrong for you that e-mails are being leaked from RTK or "RADJU TAL-KNISJA" to MEDIALINK or NET TV. In your opinion this is ethical and very normal and should be encouraged as long as it is against the Labour Party, who knows what would you have said if it was the other way round. You would undoubtedly have cared to remind us of the 70s and 80s, then you would shout out loud that the Labour party is unethical and that Gonzi should be left to run this country until the end of time. Your blue glasses are reflecting back into your eyes thus hampering you from seeing what is going on in 2011 in this so depicted state of the art country under the hands of our dear leader Gonzi and his little elves.

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@ I Fenech No threat to democracy? I wonder .... - PBS is packed with PN diehards - A company friendly to the regime is given a virtual monopoly on current affair programs on PBS - A Times journalist is sacked for a humoropus email to a girl who made a minister look undignified - Sabrnma Agius is sacked for corresponding with the Leader of the Opposition. No threat to democracy?

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@Joseph Howard Instead of parroting the crap Joseph Muscat said in Parliament - for heaven's sake, this has nothing to do with threats to democracy - just think things out a bit (if you can that is, considering you're Labour). The odds are that the emails were leaked by RTK. Only they stood to gain from this after the public accusations of discrimination made by this Labour lackey pretending to be a journalist. If they were indeed leaked by RTK, that means the emails were on the company system which RTK, as an employer, had every right to access. So stuff this rubbish about privacy. My God, can't you think, even though you're Labour?

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Nathaniel Attard: How is hacking a personal Google account "of public interest” and throws “a clear light” on how the Opposition leader used Sabrina Agius “for his political ends”? How is hacking a personal email done “in a way that did not breach the law”? Can you explain? So, according to you, we can go around and open letters of the Prime Minister as he is paid by the public to execute that role and deem it as PUBLIC INTEREST and in the mean time do not breach privacy laws that we so called Democratic country boast off?

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hatfu l rtk il pn , bil barka tal isqof.

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As Usual in this case it was Sabrina who has taken the brunt of all these e mail exchanges. Ok she might have been at fault in some way but who ever has accessed the e mail accounts of both persons and gained access is liable to prosecution. If these e mails were not sent to any one else they have for sure been obtained in a disputable manner. Worst of all is the fact that individual privacy has been breached seriously and these form of actions are only a direct threat to Democracy. Yes I would not hesitate to blame the Church in this also as no action was taken to stop any form of abuse that has been going. We should all unite against such acts.

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Why are the women who support the PL so good looking (Helena Dalli, Marlene Mizzi, Justyne Caruana and now Sabrina Agius) while the women who support the PN all look like the back-end of a horse (Dolores Cristina, Helen D'Amato, Daphnr Caruana Galizia)? There MUST be a reason.

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Xabla taqta' miz-zewg nahat.

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Now everybody make sure to contribute towards the church's deficit.

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PN wants all its bases cove aware that its fighting for its life. But the part that really left me lost for words was the follwing (I am cutting and pasting) In his statement, Attard said the emails were “of public interest” and threw “a clear light” on how the Opposition leader used Sabrina Agius “for his political ends”. What a perfect example of the Maltese aphorism IL-QAHBA MILLI JKOLLHA TTIK!!!!

Mario Pace •

Heqq.....wasn't this expected now!