I had a vision about the future of this website – and future of viable local journalism – at around the turn of this year. It is something I had been pondering for many months, my thinking precipitated by trends in the media industry, and particularly the unending sense of crisis – the evisceration of budgets for investigative journalists, or for proper, in-depth research by media outlets; the growing irrelevance of traditional media, particularly local or regional newspapers, as news is disseminated directly on social media.
And within this brutal media landscape, my predicament: the limits of my resources and output as a sole operator, especially amid the proliferation of misinformation, disinformation, and fake news drowning out the more thoughtful, analytical journalism. But, above all, what are the community’s needs?
Here is the crux: in a world increasingly bewildering and chaotic, communities need journalists who are close to them and whom they can trust.
Such community needs have of late become a point of discussion among luminary, veteran journalists.
In an article outlining the future of journalism last December, Pulitzer Prize winner Garry Pierre-Pierre wrote about journalism at the level of communities, how accidental journalists are providing information directly to communities in WhatsApp groups or other closed channels, and that this model – which contributes to the obsoleteness of local news – is resonating because “journalism is about helping people understand their world.”
He added: “And that’s my prediction for 2026: the news industry will finally realize that these informal community information networks are not peripheral to local news — they are the most functional version of it.”
What applies to local news also applies to regional news – and within Malta, national news is so small-scale that it can also be considered, in terms of budget and staffing and standards, as having the limits of what would be local or regional news in larger countries. I am saying this to make a distinction from large, international news media, which have a staying power on a different scale.
Pierre-Pierre wrote about the endless debates in newsrooms about how to “engage audiences” – the implication being that audiences are not being engaged.
“In 2026,” he wrote, “more news organizations will understand that people don’t always want an article. Sometimes they just want clarity.”
I have been hearing similar sentiments in webinars, and reading about it in newsletters, of journalistic groups I am member of.
In one email from Correctiv, an association of European journalists, a synthesis was made of what was stated by the vice president of the American Press Institute. The point emphasized is that media outlets have to rediscover “what originally attracted many to the profession – connection, creativity, community. Add the collapse of traditional revenue models, and the message is clear: information alone isn’t enough anymore.”
It added: “The future of journalism isn’t just about informing people — it’s about inviting them in, making it meaningful, and yes, even a little fun.”
Camilla Bath, Programme Director of the World Press Institute, touched on similar themes in a LinkedIn post a few days ago. She wrote of "many of the newsrooms and institutions we visited across the US were talking about the value of getting closer to the people they serve: more useful, more connected, more rooted in a community."
The post was about being "on the road" as a programme director, and seeing how conversations had shifted since she had done the same in a fellowship 12 years before.
She wrote that the debate had shifted from residual debate about "going digital-first", which is "largely over now, and by last year had been replaced by animated discussions about going audience-first."
"The problem was that very few newsrooms seemed to know what they meant by it, and even fewer meant the same thing. It felt like the word had arrived before the method."
The message is that journalists can thrive as part of the community, not a voice apart. This redefinition is something approaching a paradigm shift in a profession where journalists have tended to remain apart, aloof, and – many times – tenaciously overbearing.
In a way, such aloofness has been driven by the idea that to remain objective journalists had to remain above the fray, and guard against any drift towards activism.
This idea of a dichotomy between journalism and activism has not only held back journalists from becoming part of the community; it also amounts to intellectual delusion or dishonesty. When it comes to investigative journalism, a journalist might research something so well that it would be a loss if the journalist did not use the material in ways, in addition to publishing, that would benefit society through activism, or via workshops, or in other outreach ways. This does not have to compromise the so-called ‘objectivity’ – it is fallacy or dishonesty that someone can be objective. Even the choice of subject, and the angle taken on the story, are subjective choices.
That is fine. Responsible journalism is not a form of journalism that aims at an unattainable, and fake, notion of objectivity; responsible journalism is journalism that is well-researched and transparent (so that the audience or readers can see how the journalist established the facts, can see what is the editorial policy and ethos of the media platform, and what are the attitudes towards public issues of the journalist), and that adheres to the principles of fair reporting (stating all observable or discoverable facts, and also giving the subject a chance to comment or refute whenever possible).
The industry has been moving away from this uneasiness of activism. Last year, for example, I was involved in a project called S-Info, in which journalists would collaborate with NGOs on a journalistic investigation. The NGO Repubblika was the local coordinator of the project, which was funded by the EU. Such collaborations – and the evolution of thinking, as already explained above – are contributing to the redefining of the role of journalism.
In this redefining, it is time for journalists to remember that, as Garry Pierre-Pierre pointed out, communities sometimes want “clarity.”
And as Camilla Bath also mentioned, the other question everyone is asking is 'distinctiveness' . She wrote that "last year everyone was asking a version of the same question: what can we offer people that no one else can?"
She added that "no two answers seemed to be the same."
This website is not a core news website, or cannot be defined as local news. Yet it still has a unique journalistic role and niche in the community, and I shall focus mostly on a couple of themes that preoccupy the community or communities in Malta – education in its widest sense, the justice system, the state of the environment, as well as the quality of life and sensibility of Maltese society. These are issues currently affecting the Maltese nation (low birthrates, young people deserting Malta in droves, people suffering injustice in the justice system, degraded environment increasingly affecting quality of life in Malta, and so on).
And my mission, aside from being “connection, creativity, community” (a quote already used above), is to be authentic to maintain community trust and put the audience first. I firmly believe that in a world where many are resorting to AI-generated content, authenticity is crucial for engendering trust and fostering communities. This means my output shall remain lean; well-researched publishing takes time to research and put together for delivery.
For this reason, please subscribe to the newsletter by filling in the form below to be part of the community I can reach out to. I will keep newsletters also lean – I understand how annoying it is to have newsletters landing into your email inbox too often. I shall adopt a multi-platform publishing approach, and that means newsletters would from time to time also have content not published on this website.
