Malta Newscape

by Luke John Cassar

In these unprecedented times the Covid-19 pandemic has dominated the news. This affected all parts of the economy including the journalism industry in a financial way.

“From the advertisement side we have been affected a lot.” said Fr Joe Borg when speaking about Beacon Media Group the company responsible from newsbook.com.mt. “From the financial side we have been affected like other newsrooms.”

Journalists face tougher challenges nowadays with social media. Unfortunately, we are living in an era of fake news. “Research is key,” and “facts are sacred” and one must verify the sources to analyse credibility by verifying with 3 different sources and two witnesses at least. We try to use “the 5Ws, the who, what, where, when, how. If we cannot merry these 5 together then unfortunately, we cannot publish the story and as there will be a risk of publishing fake news.”

From the technological side journalists did not have any problems working from home rather than from the newsroom. “From that part we went along very nicely” said Fr Borg. They had something “teething problems” which crop up from time to time by apart from that they did not find any huge problems.

For Fr Borg there is quite a huge difference working remotely and from the newsroom. He said that: “when we’re working together for all those hours give rise to more sharing of ideas within our social networks, and people get a clearer picture of what is required, and more work is produced. I think that being in the same place is much better.”

The global pandemic is still in the news and people are searching for it on a daily and hourly basis. “The first thing in the morning is that we have an editor’s meeting,” said Fr Borg, “and see what is good to be published or not.” Newsbook.com.mt is still constantly updated its readers with news on the coronavirus even though the tools are tough to work with right now. Journalists are still doing their utmost to do what they love best that is to report the news in the most accurate way possible.

Technology that was waiting in the sidelines

This pandemic gave rise to tons of video conferencing tools like Skype and Zoom. Fr Borg said that “I now learnt how to use Skype in the best possible way. Skype gives you a good advantage that you can work it, but I still prefer talking to the person face to face even when broadcasting on radio.”

Newsbook.com.mt has a tag dedicated to Covid-19 and this makes it possible for readers to click on the tag and see coronavirus only related stories. This makes the website extremely user-friendly in order for the readers to look for the news they desire.

Apart from the live videos they put up on the website they have also live blogs, in which those who at that present moment cannot listen to the video due to some restrictions with their Wi-fi or other problems they can watch the rolling blog and see what is the latest news.

Newsbook.com.mt makes it a priority to put on their homepage the confirmed cases, recovered and active cases globally with the source coming from World Meters websites

Newsbook.com.mt is available both in the Maltese and English language which gives a better feel of a local community when Maltese people are reading in their own language. In all posts one can leave their own comment which makes it much more interesting for users to interact with the story especially at the times where people are finding comfort in news as they do not have much to do as the daily routine has been destroyed.

Our Beliefs still a priority

“The website is completely free to use,” Fr Borg said. There are no paywalls on the website or asking people for donations. Newsbook.com.mt is also run partly by the church so on a daily basis there is a dedicated place on the website’s homepage for the rosary, mass and other prayers. This is was brought up due to the pandemic affecting the daily mass and people have to listen to the mass either on television or via online platforms. Even the monthly magazine “Flimkien” is no longer being distributed in houses one can find and download the magazine as pdf.

Fair, Accurate and Trustworthy

With these measures people are still encouraged to stay home and stay safe so they cannot go out and buy the newspaper. Newsbook.com.mt anticipated this and publishes every morning the front pages of the papers that came out on the day.

Newsbook.com.mt abides by their slogan to be “Fair, Accurate and Trustworthy,” even in these challenging times where journalists have to work through heaps of news being thrown at them every second and to decipher which ones are true and which ones are fake is a hefty challenge.