Opinion: Time to fight back

U.S. President Donald Trump’s White House has barred reporters of Associated Press, one of the world’s largest news organisations, from attending Oval Office events. 

The reason for Trump’s draconian move was explained by his Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who said,  “I was very up front in my briefing on day one that if we feel that there are lies being pushed by outlets in this room, we are going to hold those lies accountable”.

Trump felt AP had lied and was guilty of fake news when it refused to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, as Trump’s executive order decreed. AP defied the President and Trump exiled them from the White House, publicly shaming them for their “lies”.

Meanwhile Robert Abela has been busy out-trumping Trump. Abela has been viciously attacking The Shift, claiming, “There is a fake news blog, Shift News, which specialises in reporting falsehoods. 90% of what they report contains falsehoods”.

Abela egged on other journalists to join his witch hunt against The Shift, encouraging journalists “to study this phenomenon of the Shift News and others like them because their only agenda is to push falsehoods and deceit”. 

Access to cabinet members, government officials and their functions is essential for any news organisation to do its job. Abela’s government barred The Shift well before Trump barred AP from the White House. The Department of Information claimed that registration by online news portals is voluntary, but then blocked The Shift from receiving information when it didn’t register. Besides earning international journalism awards, The Shift’s editor Caroline Muscat holds an international press card, which the Council of Europe insists “should be accepted by State authorities as journalistic credentials”. 

But Robert Abela won’t listen. They’ve exposed too many of his murky deeds. The Council of Europe rightly commented that Abela’s tactic serves “to harass journalists or to frustrate their ability to contribute effectively to public debate”.

Abela has long been on a mission to throttle The Shift. He’s been deploying an army of publicly funded lawyers for months to fight 40 different Freedom of Information requests by The Shift, right up to the courts. He’s determined to divert the attention of a small newsroom into unnecessary and costly legal battles with the intention of driving The Shift into bankruptcy. Abela is abusively using taxpayers’ money to force The Shift into submission, depriving those very same taxpayers of the truth they need — a truth far too uncomfortable for Abela. 

Excluding The Shift from government events and press statements didn’t work. Harassing them with frivolous and vexatious court appeals didn’t work, either. So Abela is reduced to deploying his final desperate volley: bad-mouthing, abusing and slandering The Shift.

The AP isn’t taking Trump’s vengeful retribution lying down. The Associated Press filed a lawsuit against Trump officials and is seeking to regain access for its journalists.

The Shift’s editor isn’t taking Abela’s abuse and defamation lightly, either. In a stand of defiance she is suing Robert Abela, the Prime Minister of Malta. She requested the court to find that Abela defamed her, and has asked for the payment of damages. Tula Ltd, the company that operates The Shift, also requested that the court find Abela liable for a trade libel and has also requested damages.

The Associated Press pointed out in its complaint that “the constitution does not allow the government to control speech”. It noted that “allowing such government control and retaliation to stand is a threat to every American’s freedom”. This applies to Malta, too. Allowing Abela to abuse and slander journalists for doing their duty is a threat to every citizen of this country. 

This is not The Shift’s fight. It’s not Caroline Muscat’s fight. This should be everybody’s fight.  

It is a fight against oppression, intimidation, and sheer bullying. It is a fight against selective and vindictive retribution meted out by a vicious prime minister against those who dare to expose his and his government’s abuse. It is a fight for freedom from state abuse, and a fight for freedom of expression.

The AP wasn’t left to fight alone. The White House Correspondents’ Association argued AP’s case with White House officials. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and the WHCA both sent letters to the White House, signed by dozens of news organisations in support of AP. Advocacy organisations praised AP’s decision to take legal action. “Like anyone would do, the AP is standing up for its rights”, said Bruce D Brown, president of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.  Seth Stern, director of advocacy for the Freedom of the Press Foundation, “welcome(d) the news that the AP is fighting back and not capitulating as others have. There is no grey area here — it’s plainly unconstitutional for presidents to deny news outlets access based on their word choices”.

“When the government shuts out journalists explicitly because it dislikes their reporting, that violates the First Amendment’, one statement declared.

What was the response in Malta to Abela’s outrageous assault on The Shift? Calling it muted would be kind. There was absolute silence in response to Abela’s bullying and intimidation. 

The lack of reaction to his characterisation of The Shift’s reporting as “fake news” and “falsehoods” highlights the danger of empowering one man to decide what constitutes lies or fake news. When access to government and to information hinges on whether the Prime Minister approves of a news portal’s reporting, this sends a chilling message to all.

Our most fatal error would be to capitulate and submit to the brutal force projected by Abela’s hostile rhetoric and pernicious actions. The safest reaction is to defy him, challenge him and stand up to him. 

One woman has taken up this fight on our behalf. Another woman picked this fight before, and we left her alone — with fatal consequences. We repeat that mistake at our own peril.