The call came in at 11.50pm on March 9, 2008,  and the voice at the other end was urgent: “Please tell your editor to hold the paper for another 40 minutes as I’m not sure if we have actually won the election.”

I had just returned home from a 16-hour, adrenaline-packed day at Ta’ Qali where emotions soared and confusion reigned as the nation waited with bated breath for news of who had won the closest general election since 1966. 

Reporters kept dashing from one end of the counting hall to another to get the latest updates from the Labour Party’s Michael Falzon and the Nationalist Party’s Joe Saliba… but no outcome. 

'Tell your editor to hold the paper for another 40 minutes'.

At 9.10pm, Saliba claimed a wafer-thin victory of just 1,200 votes. We put the paper to bed and the printing machines were rumbling to life when the then PN director of information, Gordon Pisani, made that call and I spent the next 30 mins pacing up and down the corridor until the issue was resolved minutes before our print deadline.

Journalism and news dominated practically every waking hour of my life during the 20 years I worked at the Times of Malta… particularly during my last few years as head of news, when I would wake up early, catch up on the latest updates, think of articles to follow up, pray for a front page story, and much to the chagrin of those around me, spend breakfast circling mistakes on the print edition in a red pen.

When I had first joined the Times of Malta in May 1996, my editor, and eventually my mentor, Victor Aquilina, had said: “Do you see that clock on the wall? You can forget it exists.” 

As a young upstart, who had just graduated in journalism from Ryerson University in Toronto and was focusing on partying and perfecting my tan that summer, I failed to realise how right he was.

Throughout the years, friends, family and loved ones would nod understandably, struggling to conceal their disappointment each time I failed to show up for dinner or an event. 

From giving up my New Year’s Eve party tickets to usher in the introduction of the euro at midnight of January 1, 2008 (remember the faulty cash machine that failed to immediately give then-Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi fresh euro notes?); to waiting outside the Labour Party Headquarters, hungry and cold, for over six hours in March 2008 to learn when they planned to choose their new leader; to spending a month gaining the trust of a prostitute who I accompanied to gain an insight into what life was like on the streets (for PINK Magazine’s first edition); to waiting to interview the late former President Guido de Marco.

Ariadne Massa interviewing the late president Guido de Marco.

For a while, I also had the dubious honour of being the Eurovision correspondent, and cherished opportunities to gain access to the likes of Cherie Blair, Yasser Arafat, and Sophia Loren, among others.

As a news junkie, I was always on the hunt for a scoop; seeking to eke out the human emotion, and doggedly refusing to return to the newsroom without the story… even if it meant having to knock on the door of someone who had just lost a loved one. 

The ‘clock’ was only there to remind us all of the next deadline.

Journalism is a vocation: a thankless one at times, but mostly a fulfilling and exciting job that provides you with a working family of colourful, opinionated characters, and presents exciting opportunities to bear witness to history being made.

The Times of Malta has been bearing witness for the past 85 years in spite of numerous challenges… it survived the war, re-emerged from the ashes after being burnt down by Socialist thugs in 1979, and remained steadfast when faced with its own internal issues.

The newspaper now faces another challenge… survival, in a climate where the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to permanently dry the ink on printed media and where politicians – inspired mainly by US President Donald Trump – openly attack reporters.

Yet, we will always depend on the critical analysis and journalistic scrutiny of the Times of Malta and other independent media houses to continue delivering the stories people ought to read if not necessarily what they want to read. And we can only save democracy by saving journalism.

Ariadne Massa is a former news editor at Times of Malta.

This article first appeared in a commemorative supplement marking 85 years of Times of Malta. Contributions will be published online every day between August 11 and August 20. Read other contributions.