It’s always good to mention Malta on this website, as everyone in Malta then comes here to remonstrate in one direction or the other and my ratings shoot up.

I happened upon Daphne Caruana Galizia’s site when I visited Malta only because someone there mentioned it. It turns out that she has a policy of not linking to other sites, rather in the way newspapers do not (usually) acknowledge other sources – she is after all a journalist.

I myself prefer to offer links when quoting people or their ideas, as it allows readers to check for themselves if I am being fair or not. This is good discipline: even if they do not check, they can if they want to do so. It is an important reason why the blogosphere offers higher standards of integrity than many mainstream media outlets.

But to everyone his or her own blogging style. At least Daphne has allowed me to post a couple of observations on her site, whereas two leading Malta newspapers and TYOM have (I think) not done so. Integrity comes through (or not) in many ways.

(Update: I am now informed by a reader in Malta that the Malta Independent did publish my comment on p2 promptly after I sent it in. I submitted it via their online edition whose Search function did not tell me that it had been published in the print edition. So, assuming this information is true, my thanks to Malta Independent for allowing my point to be expressed. Your turn, Maltastar) 

Here is my first post mentioning Daphne, which mainly was all about how democracy necessarily is different in an island country of some 400,000 people:

A lot of Western political thought is built on the idea of the ‘separation of powers’ – parliament, government, judiciary, police, local administrations all having clearly defined roles ands responsibilities.

Fine when it works. But how far can it work in the classic sense in a much smaller polity where everyone knows everyone else’s business and large family networks linked to political loyalty are so dominant?

In such a context a few influential bloggers can make quite an impact. As, it appears, Daphne is doing. A few thousand readers a day chatting about a blog entry with extended networks of friends and family will achieve impressive nation-wide coverage.

Or maybe not?

What do you Maltese people think? Do the Daphne and rather brutish anti-Daphne blog tendencies make any difference, in the sense of exposing issues helpfully for the Malta public or persuading people to change their minds?

Or does it all amount to merely churning up the existing divided political ground with modern tools, throwing up huge quantities of dirt and dust but nothing else, leaving those Malta people who are relatively detached from day-to-day politics bemused or even embarrassed?

Are there other less strident blogs out there covering the Malta scene in a dispassionate, analytical way? Or in Malta’s political culture does that just not work?

Maybe someone there should run a fair-minded weekly Maltablog Roundup, to capture and redefine the middle ground (such as it is), and give a wider calmer context to Malta’s blogosphere? Could be a winner if done well…

For a moment I thought this was it. But I was wrong!

Update: It exists, albeit in a different form. Blogs of Malta.

With Jacques Rene Zammit to the fore, whose own site has some pertinent thoughts on Maltese Netiquette.