Editorial: Sound journalism is not for sale

Searching for and exposing the truth is what sound journalism is all about. It certainly does not depend on the colour of money.

The culture of impunity facilitated the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia. The mastermind/s behind it thought they could shut her up for good. They were wrong. It gave more credibility to her revelations and set in motion a sequence of events that caused a political earthquake.

Ironically, on the fifth anniversary of that atrocious crime, it appears the bad apples think that, if not by means of a powerful bomb, money can silence investigative journalists. This time, it was not criminals or tycoons with a lot to lose, but lawyers, considered to be officers of the court, to boot.

The Chamber of Advocates issued a disingenuous “the Court of Magistrates did not in any way enter into the merits of the case” when it acquitted lawyers Gianluca Caruana Curran and Charles Mercieca of trying to bribe a journalist. But Magistrate Natasha Galea Sciberras considers it a fact that “at one point, Gianluca Caruana Curran offered some money to Ivan Martin”. She also noted that “the evidence produced indicate that Ivan Martin refused any money offered to...