New editorial positions at MaltaToday, Reno Bugeja to anchor online show
Saviour Balzan relinquishes editorial role to become executive director
11 January 2021, 9:44am
by MaltaToday Staff
MaltaToday founder Saviour Balzan has relinquished his role as managerial editor, to take up his position as executive director of Mediatoday.
Matthew Vella, executive editor of MaltaToday, will retain responsibility for all editorial matters, newsroom management, and news strategy at the newspaper.
“After founding Mediatoday 21 years ago, I feel it is right to focus entirely on business development, and see the company through the next years,” Balzan said.
“My passion remains good journalism, but I have now disengaged from editorial management and its titles. Matthew Vella is the right person at the right time to uphold the ethos of MediaToday’s editorial policy and steward it in this digital age and fast-moving industry.”
MaltaToday in the dock over Melvin Theuma recording leaks
Magistrate orders contempt of court proceedings against editor Matthew Vella and others
9 January 2021, 12:03pm
by Matthew Agius
MaltaToday is being accused of contempt of court over a story in which it revealed police questioning of Edwin Brincat, known as il-Gojja (left) having coached Theuma on what to say whilst recording his conversations
MaltaToday executive editor Matthew Vella and assistant editor Karl Azzopardi, and executive director Saviour Balzan, have been summoned to appear as defendants in a contempt of court case filed over the publication of extracts of phone recordings made by Melvyn Theuma.
2:55PM29 December 2020
Two plus two generally equals four, but it doesn t seem to when you look at the history of jockey betting bans.
SOMETHING DOESN’T ADD UP
Ben Melham was disqualified for five months for betting offences and giving false evidence, Damien Oliver was outed for eight months for backing a rival horse while Adam Hyeronimus was thrown out for three years for betting offences and providing false evidence. His appeal will be handed down in the new year.
I was only fair at mathematics but the numbers don’t seem to add up to me.
I realise each case is different but it’s a case of either two of the sentences are ridiculously light or one is very harsh or a mixture of both.
A global pandemic, two leadership elections, and the continuing repercussions of a journalist’s murder: it has been a tumultuous year. But it wasn’t always the big stories that left their mark on Times of Malta journalists. Here they choose the stories that resonated most with them in 2020.
A windfarm in Montenegro
Jacob Borg
Having written countless stories about corruption over the years, there was one in 2020 that stood out for its immediate political impact.
The Montenegro wind farm story showed how businessman Yorgen Fenech’s secret company 17 Black was quietly used to profit from a project that had long been mired in suspicions of corruption.