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So, the cat’s finally out of the bag (and sleeping peacefully on our news desk whenever he feels like it, it seems).
NEWZWEEK is our first weekly project, and like any other new venture, it came with its own fair share of hiccups. I’d like to add some detail about what those hiccups consisted of.
Our starting point is the fact that our resources are extremely limited. Between myself and my colleague Michael, who runs his own website at NEWZ.mt, we can manage to just about scrape a studio together. I myself bring only my know-how when it comes to reporting on the local scene – Michael does all the heavy lifting on the technical side of things.
In spite of the fact that we work with the bare minimum that is required to call a set-up a studio, we’ve produced a significant amount of material in less than six months. We’ve produced dozens of videos for our coverage of the hospitals case, five episodes for our interview series SIEGĦA, a documentary called Untangling The Mafia State, and now, our weekly show. I feel like the quality standard of our material speaks for itself.
Unfortunately, our technical limitations bested us on Friday. Though we hoped to stream our episode live on Friday evening, we realised that we would not be able to render the material on time to upload it at a reasonable hour. The equipment we use is constantly being stretched to its maximum output capabilities. It becomes difficult to predict outcomes when all systems (including ourselves) are under such heavy strain. Our fundraiser campaign is designed with the intent of helping us upgrade our systems and therefore, make our lives a whole lot easier.
With all that being said, I am proud of the fact that we brought yet another vision to life. Our objective with this new weekly show is to further stretch the boundary of what is considered permissible journalism in this country. We don’t need anyone’s permission. We don’t want to advertise government propaganda. And we most certainly are not obliged to respect any government which tramples on the rights of its citizens so assiduously. We will expose you, mock you, and drive you all up the wall if we have to.
Besides offering our perspective on each week’s key news items, the show will also include features. Our first episode includes a brief interview with Fondazione Falcone’s Robert Aquilina and some great shots of Moviment Graffitti’s 30 year anniversary exhibition.
In the spirit of further supporting civil society initiatives which we believe deserve a spotlight, we will also be present at Fondazione Falcone’s inauguration later on today. We will also be recording a very special episode of SIEGĦA this week and I am excited to share it with you as soon as we have it.
As for our fundraiser campaign, we are at about 9.5% of our minimum target with 28 days left before we are set to close it off. By the time I published this editorial, 41 people contributed directly to the fundraiser campaign. Though I obviously appreciate every single cent that’s been sent our way, I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t anxious about falling far short of what we need to keep our projects going. To put it bluntly, what we have so far will barely get us through a month.
We’ve made huge personal sacrifices to get to where we stand today. Though I will not mourn the time I poured into this project if it does not yield the results I hope it does, I have to say that I’d be disappointed if that turns out to be the case. I genuinely believe that the kind of journalism we are doing is the kind of journalism that the country desperately needs. The failure of this project would leave me with no other logical conclusion than accepting that it is not the kind of journalism that the country wants.
Forgive me for sounding like it’s all doom and gloom at the HQ. We’re still hell-bent on giving this everything we’ve got and we will keep pushing it until there really is nothing left in the tank. But we really do need every bit of support we can get and it would be simply obtuse of me to say that what we’ve managed to drum up so far is enough. Though I hear a lot of encouragement and praise – and a consistent share of hatred and anger, too – I must stress that praise does not purchase the material needed for us to continue.
Whatever does happen throughout these next 28 days is entirely in the hands of whoever comes across our work and is faced with the choice of supporting it or passively moving past it. I express endless gratitude for whoever chose to grab their wallet and contribute to this otherwise thankless endeavour.
Stay tuned – we’ll be back with more.
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