On this day in 2011, an unknown journalist called Karl Stennienibarra broke the news that Queen Elizabeth II had given Malta as a wedding gift to Prince William and Kate Middleton.
As such, this wasn’t the birth of Bis-Serjetà – merely the birth of Bis-Serjetà as a website. Before that fateful April day 10 years ago, Stennienibarra had been a journalist in his native Gozo. He was the founder of the little-known Bis-Serjetà newspaper, a daily paper only available in Għarb. He provided his five readers – three of whom were illiterate, and one of whom was a dog – with in-depth reporting on onion crop yields, sheep traffic and witch burnings.
Indeed, several superstitious Gozitans believe that Stennienibarra is a demi-god who has been living on the island for thousands of years. According to legend, he was born of the goddess of fertility and a mortal cow herd. He is said to have advised the natives during the construction of what is now known as Gġantija temple. Archaeological evidence (that has since been suppressed) suggests the Neolithic structure was not a temple, but a primitive newsroom from where Stennienibarra (his name at the time is sadly lost to us) could disseminate serious news in the form of crude drawings etched in stone – the precursor to today’s Facebook posts. If true, this would make him the world’s first free-standing journalist.
A character very similar to Stennienibarra makes an appearance two thousand years later in Homer’s Odyssey. After Odysseus is shipwrecked on Gozo and taken in by the sea nymph Calypso, a crowd of angry locals gathers in front of her cave overlooking Ramla l-Ħamra and yells at the Greek king to go back to his country. It is speculated these people may be the ancestors of Labour trolls who still make Greek memes about Bernard Grech, but we digress.
Stennienibarra, being a demi-god and friend of Calypso, wrote what would now be called an editorial on a sheet of papyrus, opining that we should be nice to shipwrecked foreigners. Upon reading the proto-editorial, the crowd relented and left the pair alone. However, the goddess Aphrodite was jealous of Calypso, and turned her into a bottle of ketchup.
Stennienibarra, or someone like Stennienibarra, pops up again in the historical record in 1551. The Ottoman admiral Dragut is reported to have threatened to behead a chronicler named Carlo Aspettamifuori, after he accused him of dragging the entire population of Gozo into slavery. Dragut insisted the so-called slaves were merely participating in a voluntary mass migration scheme.
Aspettamifuori/Stennienibarra avoided being enslaved during the attack itself by coincidentally being on a fishing trip. It is said that he repopulated Gozo with Calypso. So if you’re a present-day Gozitan, you may be descended from a demigod who stuck his penis into a bottle of ketchup.
Stennienibarra has neither confirmed nor denied any of these stories. What we do know is that it was at one of the aforementioned witch burnings that happened in 2011 that Stennienibarra met Anġlu Grech, an elderly Gozitan man who had worked as the Queen and Prince Philip’s bottom wiper during their stay in Malta in 1992. Through his connections, Farrugia had learned of the Queen’s intentions to give Malta as a royal wedding present.
Stennienibarra knew that if he published this poop-man’s scoop before the other papers got wind of it, he could make it big beyond the confines of Għarb. The problem was that Gozo did not have internet coverage. In fact, television had only been introduced the previous year. So he hopped on the ferry, and in an internet cafe in Msida, he created the Bis-Serjetà WordPress blog.
The blog was an instant hit, with hundreds of Maltese people eagerly reading about how they were about to become serfs again. Stennienibarra further solidified his reputation as a serious journalist when, a few weeks later, he reported that Italian politician Tarcisio Zobbi was frustrated and perplexed at being constantly laughed at during a visit to Malta.
He then followed this up with incisive coverage of the divorce referendum, a heart-warming interview with 100-year-old prostitute Doris Borg that ended up going viral around the world, and reporting on the tail-end of the Nationalist Party’s 25-year-ish rule, culminating in the 2013 general election.
Sadly, none of the articles from that time – except the Doris Borg interview – are available to read. A few months after Joseph Muscat swept to power, Stennienibarra did what all self-respecting journalists do a few years into their careers: he got a job in PR, and subsequently forgot to renew the site’s hosting fees.
But instead of becoming a shill for a hotelier, like Lou Bondi, Stennienibarra ventured abroad and became the chief media officer of Turkmenistan’s authoritarian president, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow. At the time, the country ranked 176 out of 178 in the Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index, and Stennienibarra assumed Berdimuhamedow wanted to improve Turkmenistan’s reputation. This was not the case, however – the dictator wanted his country to be dead last in the index, and ordered the former journalist to help suppress the media even further. Stennienibarra was of course loathe to do this, but was contractually bound to do Berdimuhamedow’s bidding. Using his cunning, he convinced his strongman employer that instead of repressing freedom of speech, he should do various publicity stunts to impress his people, such as record a rap video about the importance of sports.
And when Berdimuhamedow wanted to build a new state-of-the-art torture facility for journalists, Stennienibarra convinced him to spend the money on a giant gold equestrian statue of himself instead.
All in all, despite working for one of the world’s worst dictators, Stennienibarra can safely claim to have more integrity than Lou Bondi.
Fast forward to December 2018, Stennienibarra accompanied Berdimuhamedow across the Caspian Sea to a trade summit in Azerbaijan. And who should be at the same summit but Joseph Muscat? The Maltese Prime Minister was attempting to leverage his close connections with Azerbaijan’s own authoritarian president Ilham Aliyev to secure a deal to sell handbags designed by Michelle Muscat to Turkmenistan.
Since Stennienibarra was wearing a traditional Turkmenistani costume, Muscat did not recognise him. During a banquet, he boasted that since a journalist called Karl Stennienibarra had disappeared from Malta, he had been able to get away with anything. Upon hearing this, the former BS editor decided he had to return to his homeland. But he knew Berdimuhamedow would not allow him to leave, so he stowed away on board the Maltese delegation’s private jet, hiding inside Michelle Muscat’s handbag closet.
Back in Malta, Stennienibarra immediately set about restoring his position as Malta’s number one serious journalist. A year later, Muscat was forced to resign from office. Coincidence? Who knows?
Will Bis-Serjetà have another (hopefully uninterrupted this time) 10 years of stellar journalism? Only time will tell. Stennienibarra is not funded by any big business, political party, or rich sugar daddy, and advertisers are, for some strange reason, reluctant to collaborate with Bis-Serjetà. A decade ago, this was a problem, but now thanks to Patreon – a funding site for artists, creators and serious journalists – fans like you can contribute a few euros a month to make sure he sticks around for a while.
Why not sign up now? It takes two minutes, and you’ll get benefits in return: exclusive content, early access to videos, voucher codes for cool local businesses, and free merch.
