I would like to thank the donors and subscribers who have heeded our calls to support us. These Saturday write-ups have served us well.
Since being hit by systematic SLAPP action initiated by Alkagesta, we have lost significant access to our social media accounts on Meta platforms apart from being demonitised by Google by having our Google AdSense account suspended.
We also have to defend our investigations in a civil Court case initiated by Alkagesta.
Following our demonitisation, by Google we called on our readers to subscribe. We are also seeking major and big donors to fund this project including via credit. We had a good response but it is still not enough and we need much wider and extensive support for this project to endure a long-term existence.
Following the support we have received we also feel obliged to our supporters and subscribers to provide you with a report of what we are doing and the state of this press outlet.
1. The Maltese Herald was founded in October 2024 and it has been funded and sustained with my personal funds. Funding for Dar Camilleri and The Maltese Herald is intended to build the streams of revenue and produce and publish content.
2. We have around 250 subscribers for The Maltese Herald. This figure needs to be multiplied by ten to have a broad and strong base.
3. The project remains unprofitable and needs significant liquidity provisions and further build up.
4. We are in the process of regularising employees. We have two part-time employees with the aim to slowly transition these employees into full-time roles. I am not included in this count so all in all we are currently three journalists. I also plan to hire another employee for Dar Camilleri.
5. We had a more extensive employee network when we started and this may be because I ran ahead of my limits when I started the project. The start of this project coincided when I won a Constitutional Case against the National Book Council enabling me to tap public funding. However this public funding was cut soon after affecting our employee headcount.
6. The press in Malta is not profitable and is dependent on government and public funding. Labour government officials and politicians have ensured that we are excluded from the currently available support system that sustains publishing, art and the press. In turn, the same entities that are meant to support us, such as the Arts Council and the National Book Council (not to mention the UOM), are deliberately excluding us from specific funding and support streams while backing our competitors. Some writers and members of the culture community have taken advantage of this vulnerability of ours in self-interest through acts of ingratiation with officials and politicians.
7. Ultimately we intend to publish more books and produce even more journalistic content as we build our newsroom and press outlet.
One clear example is how the Arts Council is funding newspapers such as MaltaToday for their culture content while we fund our culture section ourselves. We have no access to the public broadcaster or the national university. BOV is advertising with all of the press outlets except with The Maltese Herald despite the fact that we are the only ones having a live stock ticker of the MSE and actively cover the finance and banking. The list is endless.
Having us cut off from the public support systems that fund and support intellectual work and publishing is very intentional and systematic and it is intended to reduce our capabilities, curtail our work, and damage us commercially. Of course, there are many who desperately want us to fail.
In addition, we understand that we are operating in a very hostile social environment and many have taken advantage of our precarious position to pursue their personal and commercial interests.
In such a very hostile commercial and social environment, we intend to build resilience and and independence and this is why we absolutely need private credit and funding.
In parallel, we also intend to keep contesting our exclusion and discrimination through legal cases. Eventually, when we tap public funding and resources which our competitors have access to, we should be in a very strong commercial position.
The Labour government knows about our situation and obviously they would like to ensure that this project fails. We have so far been extremely vulnerable and exposed. However all the damage that could have been done to us by a wide range of different sources has now reached its limit and there is no further damage these entities can inflict. We are now in a position to begin fighting back, and to crawl back our losses and we will do so extensively and aggressively until we make sure that this project succeeds.
We still urge our readers to subscribe here. We are also seeking donors and creditors. We also have a Paypal for donations here, mark@darcamilleri.com.
Website Editor
Historian and Publisher
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