Thread by @jonworth

The #JosephMifsud digging this week has taught me a lot. It’s always good to teach an old dog new tricks. This is a quick summary. 1/19

My own interest in Mifsud was by chance, and then my second reaction was “this is fascinating” and it drove me the whole week. 2/19

A good dozen others - some of whom I only connect with online - are likewise fascinated, determined to see if there’s more to this. 3/19

These folks helping - some under their own names, some anonymously, and many thanked on my blog - have been brilliant and collaborative 4/19

We do not know what we are going to find. But we are sure there ARE things to find, and we don’t stop until we do. 5/19

Also in the internet era masses of the information you need is hidden in plain sight. Different people, with different skills, make 6/19

different sense of it. A friend who’s into music helped me find the connected record label. Others speak languages I don’t - I cannot 7/19

search the Duma website for example. Even with Google Translate I do not know what to search *for*. 8/19

However for every good, collaborative, helpful person, there have been a fair number of annoying people as well. 9/19

These are mostly journalists for classical outlets who go: There’s a professor. Write about professor. Sex it up. Move on. 10/19

That leads to errors and exaggeration, like this idea that Mifsud cannot be found

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Repubblica found him! 11/19

Also, as story moves on these classical media pieces do more harm than good - they are set in time, don’t get changed as we learn more 12/19

This is not wilful distortion. It is that it takes some time, and probably collaboration too, to really work out what is happening 13/19

Plus when someone like me- blogger at low end of media food chain- point out to journalists they’re missing stuff I seldom get replies 14/19

I’d actually be happy if journalists just took stuff off my blog (ideally credited) - if it meant their pieces were then better! 15/19

A further reaction from journo friends to me in private has been “meh” - you’re not proving anything. True, somewhat. But if I only 16/19

wrote about things where I knew the conclusion, the story, before I started I’d never get to the heart of anything! You too perhaps? 17/19

The very extent and nature of Mifsud and his networks is the sort of thing that standard journalism and standard journalists miss. 18/19

So, to those who helped this week: 💚 thanks!
And to the rest: speak truth unto power, be curious, and dig! It works! 19/19

(Oh and if you want the fruits of my #JosephMifsud work, with help from many others, here’s my blog post! jonworth.eu/joseph-mifsud-… )