The Front Page on the Front Line

by Martin G. Debattista

published by Midsea Books

This book is a labour of love. Martin Debattista’s interest in war-time newspapers date back from his studies at the University of Malta, a BA dissertation in Communication Studies written 27 years ago. 

Since then, I have had the opportunity to follow his personal trajectory and I am delighted that in this book he continued to dig deeper and wider into war-time journalism in Malta. With this publication, Debattista addresses a gap in knowledge about the role of the media at a time when the islands were considered as the most heavily bombed place on earth.

This book looks at the multiple threats suffered by wartime journalists and printers. Some challenges and fears were common to the rest of the population, but others were intrinsically linked to their crucial role.

These included bombings and a high level of personal risk; newspaper employees who turned up for work even when they had become refugees and suffered hunger; destroyed buildings and machinery; difficulty to access and disseminate information because of censorship and the dissonance that often comes with self-censorship.

War-time journalism is indeed unlike reporting during peace time, but reading the book, one also senses some of the intense polarising traits that always characterised newspapers in the Maltese islands. Freedom of the press in Malta was granted in 1837, before it was enacted in many parts of Europe.

The tradition of Maltese journalism that emerged since that year was embedded either in the cultural wars over language and loyalties to external powers or modelled on social-reformist ideals inspired by illuminism, political enfranchisement and anti-colonial sentiment.

We cannot say that pre-World War Two, Malta enjoyed positive peace. There was dreadful strife which boiled over during the June 7 riots and continued after self-government in 1921. A harsh politico-religious clash broke out in the late 1920s that was embedded in the Language Question.

This led to an assassination attempt on Prime Minister Gerald Strickland and eventually to the withdrawal of the self-government constitution. Interwar journalism is to a degree, an extension of some of these struggles in the context of international developments that were taking place with the rise of extreme-right forces in Europe and the advancement of the liberationist aspirations in the colonies.

A key character in Martin’s book is Mabel Strickland. I find the interwar young Mabel to be much more coherent, empowered, genuine and underrated than the mature Mabel of the post-war era.

She was hands-on in the formation of the Constitutional Party in the 1920s and played an important role when her father, the party leader, spent months away from Malta, while he was either contesting for a Conservative seat in the House of Commons and when he later became a peer in the House of Lords.

War-time journalism was in part a continuation of interwar dynamics

She took over when he went away to enjoy cool English summers in Sizergh Castle, or while he was wooing his second wife, the rich heiress Margaret Hulton, who was the daughter of a Fleet Street newspaper mogul.  Strickland’s political fortunes and most of his printing ventures were all killed off by the first politico-religious crises.

At that time, we see the young Mabel Strickland, a devout Catholic, reaching out to allies and travelling overseas in a bid to bring an end to the clash with the Church and help lift the mortal sin from the party and Stricklandian newspapers.

In 1931, she went before a Royal Commission to plead for women’s aspirations in politics, when a petition signed by  428 women called for their enfranchisement. She made a fantastic case before the commission, even though her plea was not granted. It was during this period that Mabel coordinated with Josephine Burns, a well-connected newspaper contributor who was raised in England. This provides a backdrop to Debattista’s chosen theme.

Indeed, war-time journalism was in part a continuation of interwar dynamics.

Debattista dedicates a good part of the book to the theme of war propaganda. The book documents the set-ups and methods used to construct narratives of heroes defending the empire, their motherland, and their women and children. The media are used as tools that legitimised imperial decisions.

We must remember that Britain had first followed a policy of appeasement with Hitler, to try to avoid another war.

Mabel Strickland (standing) and May Agius and what's left of their office in Strickland House on April 7 1942. Photo: The Front Page on The Front Line

The change in policy required heightened propaganda to switch gear and secure mass consent. Propaganda was needed to recruit armies; build patriotism and loyalty towards the Empire; maintain morale; and keep up the flow of volunteers.

It was also used to ensure war-time industrial and food production that needed to be sustained by those who were not on the war front. Women were persuaded to run industries that were previously male domains.

To counter the gender divide, the Maltese Church was momentarily roped in to encourage women in support of the war effort. Mabel was surely a role model during this difficult period, where the islands were run on women as we even saw them taking roles in male realms such as the Malta Dockyards.

It is not surprising that women also played significant roles in war-time journalism, but this momentum was not sustained in the post war where, besides Mabel, women in Maltese journalism (the Times of Malta included) did not obtain a key role before the 1990s.

It is interesting to note that some of the allied psychological operations in Italy were coordinated in Malta. In this book, Debattista recounts how leaflets that were dropped over Italy, to demoralise Italians, were printed in Malta. Propaganda in Malta was disseminated under the auspices of Rediffusion and came from BBC and Reuters.

This publication closed some gaps in knowledge when it comes to the history of World War II. We can say that we now have better knowledge on how information played a role in “the worst of times”.

Carmen Sammut is pro rector for student and staff affairs and outreach, and a lecturer in journalism and media communication at the University of Malta.