Joseph Muscat’s misinformation machine

One of the cardinal tenets of journalism is to get the information you’re reporting on straight from the source.

If you’re reporting on any court case, there is no substitute to being present in the courtroom. If you’re reporting on the biggest criminal case in Malta’s history, consistent attendance becomes all the more important. In what is destined to be another lengthy saga, the politically charged narratives that the accused seek to push out must be examined over time.

Another tenet is the idea that claims should be assessed according to the context in which they are made, more so if the claim is made by individuals facing criminal accusations that, in the hospitals concession case, include money laundering, fraud, conspiracy, bribery, and corruption in public office, to name but a few of the charges.

The source of information itself must be questioned and evaluated according to the credibility of the individual at hand. A claim made by a person who is a known liar cannot be considered equal to a claim made by a person that does not share that track record.

Though you’d be forgiven for thinking that this is all standard practice based on the application of common sense and logic, an analysis of mainstream media reporting practices on this case shows otherwise.

We looked into local news coverage about Miroslava Milenović, the court expert who played a key role in the investigation carried out by inquiring magistrate Gabriella Vella.

While there were over 20 forensic analysts assisting with the process of seizing and preserving evidence, Milenović was the only forensic accountant cited by the inquiring magistrate, rendering her testimony crucial to the development of the case. A forensic accountant’s job is to investigate financial flows and detect suspicious or illicit patterns in company finances.

Given that the majority of news mentions were about Milenović’s recent testimonies in court as an expert witness in the hospitals case, our data graphic covered 13 September – 14 November of this year. The analysis as a whole takes into account previous coverage and how it contrasts with the ongoing smear campaign against Milenović.

 

Besides outlining basic information parameters like publication date, source, and the headline that was used for every relevant article, I labelled each bit of coverage as either ‘within acceptable standards’ or ‘negative’.

The criteria for defining ‘acceptable’ coverage in this specific context are drawn up from the two tenets mentioned in this introduction: did the news outlet report the story accurately, and were there any gaps in the reporting that furthered the narrative that Milenović was not fit to do her job as an expert?

‘Negative’ coverage, therefore, refers to recent media mentions in which Milenović was portrayed as incompetent and/or unqualified, in spite of the significant amount of documentation and previous coverage which suggests the opposite (you can watch our summary on this matter here or read our full live blog here).

To further illustrate how, in some instances, mainstream media outlets echoed the narrative furthered by the accused and their supporters, we included samples of the coverage pushed by the Labour Party’s propaganda outlet and disgraced former prime minister Joseph Muscat’s crank blogger Neville Gafa’.

Overall, from a sample of 18 articles published between 13 September – 14 November, just six of them could be considered ‘acceptable’ in relation to the basic criteria established for this analysis.

Negative coverage which deliberately (or at best, through neglectful misreporting or omission) portrayed the court expert in question as incompetent increased heavily between 13 – 15 November, though it had already cropped up in other instances whenever Milenović’s work was deemed inconvenient to the government.

Our analysis shows how this can largely be attributed to the way in which the defence lawyers’ arguments in the hearing held on 13 November were reported verbatim by both propagandists and mainstream media outlets alike.

The most relentlessly negative coverage came from the least surprising quarters – TVM, ONE, and Muscat’s crank blogger are responsible for half of the negative articles highlighted in this analysis.

This end of the narrative described Milenović as unqualified and evasive, going to particular lengths to falsely frame Milenović’s statement that she no longer holds an active accountant’s warrant as an admission that she is not qualified enough for the investigative work she was hired to carry out.

Both ONE and Muscat’s crank blogger made it a point to emphasise Milenović’s nationality in the headline, adding a xenophobic tinge to the smear campaign. ONE even went as far as to claim that last Friday’s hearing was deferred because of Milenović’s lack of qualifications instead of the fact that it was Muscat’s criminal complaint against the expert that stalled the hearing.

While this may seem like acceptable standard-fare for the Labour Party’s propaganda arms and a state broadcaster that is completely under its control, serious problems arose when this negative slant made it to the headlines of the mainstream press as well.

Times of Malta, Lovin Malta and The Malta Independent all produced coverage which gave the distinct impression that Milenović is, in fact, unqualified to claim the title of forensic accountant. MaltaToday and Newsbook were more consistent and thorough with their coverage during the examined period.

Though two of Times of Malta’s articles – published on 13 and 14 November – do provide some context, the framing of both stories amounts to a ‘they said v she said’ situation. Both stories fail to point out the discrepancy in credibility between the two and that to date, discrediting expert witnesses has been the only strategy deployed by the defence.

In contrast, a Times of Malta report published on 18 November correctly notes that the criminal complaint filed by Muscat and other co-accused was the primary reason why the second hearing of the week had to be postponed. Times of Malta further picked up the pace earlier today by releasing a proper, thorough analysis piece just this morning.

Lovin Malta, whose journalists hardly ever stepped foot in Hall 22, took Jason Micallef at his word when he repeated the nonsensical claim that Milenović is not qualified for the role she served in the inquiry because she does not hold an active accountant’s warrant.

As for The Malta Independent, their coverage varied greatly from one day to the next. While the coverage was detailed and thorough enough to adequately describe what unfolded during the hearing on 13 November, the follow-up report on the criminal complaint that was filed the following day left a lot to be desired.

Tellingly, whoever wrote the follow-up acknowledged that they were simply recirculating what the Times had already reported earlier that day, repeating the same framing errors noted in the Times piece published on the 14^th.

A classic case of doublespeak

Though the accused in the hospitals case now claim that Milenović is not qualified enough to be considered as an expert in her field, things were very different back when they were in charge.

Back in May 2016 – at the height of Muscat’s power – the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) and the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU) employed Milenović’s services as an “expert consultant” who was brought in to train internal staff as well as members of the police force and prosecutors from the office of the attorney general, among others.

In an MFSA newsletter from that year which referred to anti-money laundering seminars which involved the expert in question, Milenović was specifically described as “a forensic accountant with extensive expertise in investigatory techniques.”

Conveniently, Muscat’s administration had also failed to raise any issues about Milenović’s credibility when she served as a court expert in the Egrant inquiry, the terms of which were narrowly dictated by the disgraced former prime minister and his lawyers given that he had filed the request for a magisterial inquiry himself.

On the contrary, Muscat had used the inquiry to exonerate himself and brand Daphne Caruana Galizia as a liar. Labour’s propaganda arm quoted Milenović’s work as proof that Muscat was not connected with Egrant.

One of the earliest news reports in which one of the accused in the hospitals concession attacked Milenović’s credibility was published in March 2021, just three years after the Labour Party itself had effectively onboarded Milenović’s work as an expert in another magisterial inquiry.

At the time, disgraced former chief of staff to the prime minister Keith Schembri attempted to discredit Milenović by claiming that the expert, who had also assisted with the magisterial inquiry into Schembri’s deal with Allied Newspapers Ltd, had recommended criminal charges against him because of her past political affiliations with an anti-corruption movement in her home country of Serbia.

Since then, efforts to escalate the smear campaign against Milenović have clearly increased and are only likely to get worse if and when she returns to the witness stand to testify about her work.