Look at the rank hypocrisy.

On New Years’ Day last year Joe Mikallef splashed this Net News report on how Mario Tonna’s wife filed a police report on 28th December 2017 accusing her husband of head butting her. Mario Tonna was Assistant Commissioner of Police.

Mario Tonna’s wife’s police report found its way to Joe Mikallef who published every gory detail. How her husband called her on the phone and slurring he called her “crazy, shit, rubbish and whore”.

And then he went on into a blow by blow account about how they fought and yet still went out on a happy birthday dinner on 22nd December before having another fight over the Commissioner of Police’s Christmas bash that she wanted to skip.

The next day on 2 January Mario Tonna resigned from Assistant Commissioner of Police. He did not wait for an investigation or for a court process. The wife-beating bastard felt the pressure and walked the plank.

Net News felt no dismay that Mario Tonna took their reporting seriously or over-reacted to it. On the contrary they wrote in this other Joe Mikallef report on the next day that Mario Tonna’s resignation from public office was thanks to their intrepid journalism.

But they didn’t think his resignation was punishment enough. So on 7th January, when Mario Tonna was no longer a public official, they splashed his wife’s report on the front page of Il-Mument and an inside spread. It didn’t matter that it was Christmas. It didn’t matter that it was personal. It didn’t even matter that this was no longer a public official they were speaking about.

The Adrian Delia situation is so similar as to be almost uncanny. His wife reports him for verbal and physical abuse (in court not at the police station). The matter is reported over the Christmas period (not by Net News I should perhaps point out). But this time: no resignations: only heartwarming sympathy with the alleged perpetrator and a speech this morning announcing a witch-hunt. More on that later.

And then il-Mument also has a front page by Joe Mikallef but not to sum things up. But rather to gaslight Occupy Justice, accusing them of being closet abortionists, because on Saturday they were the only women’s group to say ‘hey, you know what should happen to a public official whose wife accuses him of beating her?’.

What Joe Mikallef says.

One final similarity. Net News at the time was run by the same person who runs it now: Pierre Portelli. He reported to the same person he reported to then: Adrian Delia.