There has been an extensive debate on multiple pages on Wikipedia with some contributors and commentators on the website accusing The Maltese Herald of not being reliable and also of being a personal blog (The Maltese Herald originated from my personal website).
The Maltese Herald started in October 2024 with three employees and two part-time journalists. We are now down to one part-time journalist and no other employees at the moment. We are also in the process of looking for new hires for potential immediate or future hire. Occassionally we also purchase journalistic pieces from outside contributors. The Maltese Herald is registered as a press outlet with the Department of Information. We intend to have a fully functional and regular newsroom and we have many constraints in this partly because the legacy and mainstream press outlets in Malta depend on government funding to survive. We are trying to create something different.
The term “blog” has been used against us to delegitimise our work. This was also the case with regard to Daphne Caruana Galizia whose journalist work was described as “bloggish” hence delegimitising its worth and value. At The Maltese Herald we do journalism, which can be biased, but also verified and with evidence. We don’t shy away from our biases.
We are however independent. We have no creditors or owners. I am the sole and single owner. Most of of the work here is mine but there is an ongoing transition in the share of my content on this website is decreasing. There will be some ups and downs in the process. Eventually we will bounce back. Personally, I am free from any private obligations and I am not a member of any political party or political organisation.
Since we have published an extensive investigation about Alkagesta, Alkagesta has engaged a PR team to diffuse what it describes as “damage to its reputation” but it is mostly engaging in censorship, lies and defamation itself. It has also published multiple sponsored articles on the mainstream press to divert attention and gratify the local press. Alkagesta also engaged the services of pseudo newspapers which are more like PR-media services. Alkagesta has also engaged in an extensive censorship campaign to censor the articles about it on Google and leave showing only the articles which write about it positively. Alkagesta even accused us of racism.
We also have the name of an academic from the US who was engaged to help Alkagesta in this PR war. This academic and lawyer was engaged to send legal letters to Google’s offices in the US about our articles.
Alkagesta has also protested with Wikipedia after some Wiki editors made references to our investigation about it. Subsequently, many of these references have been removed because they were considered unreliable. There is no mention however in Wikipedia that Alkagesta has conducted a systematic disinformation campaign to censor its critics and potentially also defame them.
Alkagesta’s owner was under arrest in Azerbaijan. We have much more information and data which we have not yet published on the persons and individuals involved in the extensive operation of Russian-diesel and oil smuggling with Alkagesta. All our investigation has been thoroughly verified.
Our investigation about Alkagesta was extensively cited in foreign press.
We have never engaged in the debate at Wikipedia or on any debate that is related to us. I don’t post on Wikipedia and I don’t have an account there. I was banned from posting on Wikipedia on a permanent basis many years ago when I entered into an editing war with a Wiki editor over my insistence to add a footnote book reference by Professor Godfrey Wettinger.
We welcome Wikipedia editors who The Maltese Herald as a source. We actively use Wikipedia for basic data and information and open imagery. We have no qualms with Wikipedia although we disagree with its founder over copyright issues and this disagreement was made clear during the debate over the EU’s Copyright in the Digital-Single Market Directive. Overall, we think that Wikipedia is a force of good but can be used negatively as in this particular occasion where Alkagesta has convinced Wikipedia editors that our material about it “is not reliable”.
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Historian and Publisher
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