Malta’s latest watchdog – why the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation launched Amphora Media 

The Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation launched its own media outlet, Amphora Media, that will be focusing on international investigative journalism. Set up in the aftermath of the assassination of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, the foundation that bears her name has been fighting for full justice for her murder that sent shockwaves around the world in 2017. Part of the foundation’s work also involved collaborating with various media outlets in different ways. It offered them access to free legal advice and also shared documents it obtained, which formed the basis of several news stories published by Maltese newspapers. This work has paved the way for the foundation to open its own fully-fledged newsroom.

“There are a lot of news organisations that do a good job, doing what they do. But I think people feel a strong need for this space with a bit more slow, well-researched journalism,” Julian Bonnici, the editor of Amphora Media, told The Fix in an interview.

Previously an editor at Lovin Malta, Bonnici is now leading three other journalists in publishing investigative news stories about Malta and beyond. The stories will mainly be published in English, with some being translated into Maltese whenever the need arises. Amphora Media’s first piece was released on Valentine’s Day 2025. To produce the story, the news platform collaborated with OCCRP and Times of Malta to delve into an illegal betting network that used Malta as its base of operations.

“There are always some hiccups in a launch, but I think considering we are a new platform, it went quite well. Especially since the [attention] was all organic,” Bonnici said.

“It’s always nice to collaborate with so many journalists from across the world. You get different perspectives, different sets of eyes on things. It was really refreshing also to go through such a stringent fact-checking process,” Bonnici added.

OCCRP’s fact-checking process is notoriously stringent, even being described as “torture” by those experiencing it for the first time. Bonnici was more forgiving with his words and described the process as more of a “safety net”.

“It’s true how meticulous they are. But at the end of the day, when you publish your story you feel really comfortable with it from a legal, security standpoint,” Bonnici said. “There isn’t a sentence you’d take out if you were challenged on it. It was actually quite a nice experience.”

This collaborative approach to journalism is still relatively new to Malta where a handful of organisations compete for eyeballs and Euros on an island so small you can cross it by car in around an hour.

Amphora Media adopted a non-profit model and will be looking to source its funding through grants and a membership donation scheme. Having a newsroom that isn’t dependent on one large source of funding was another aspect that helped convince Bonnici to quit his job at a think tank and to grow this new media outlet instead.

“You do see nowadays a bit too much of blurring of the lines, right, with especially corporate interests who are involved in controversial projects. For example, greenwashing through the same platforms that criticize them,” Bonnici. 

The launch of Amphora Media came shortly before the announcement that Taste&Flair, a monthly food and lifestyle magazine founded by Daphne Caruana Galizia is ceasing publication after a 20-year run. Another remnant of Caruana Galizia’s work is her blog which is said to have attracted more visitors than the combined circulation of Malta’s newspapers on its busier days. While many of her fans had hoped the blog would be kept updated, the site looks exactly like it did on the day she was assassinated in a targeted car bomb attack. While her eldest son, Matthew Caruana Galizia, doesn’t exclude that Amphora Media will continue to build on some of his mother’s investigations in the future, the new media outlet is not meant to replace her blog.

“My mother’s style is not something that you can just sort of read the recipe of and replicate. So even if we tried to do that, we would fail. It’s going to focus on just investigative reporting and we’ll continue to work with the media that are still doing investigative reporting and those that don’t currently but want to do that also,” Matthew Caruana Galizia told The Fix.

While he is set to continue leading the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation as its director, Matthew Caruana Galizia said he won’t be involved in the editorial structure of Amphora Media. However, the foundation will still strongly support the outlet.

“Because [the foundation] carries my mother’s name, and because I think we’ve built up a lot of trust as well, as my mother did,  then I feel sources are going to continue trusting us,” Caruana Galizia said. This means they will then be able to pass on these leads to Amphora Media.

Crime and corruption stories will be the outlet’s main focus, especially if there is a Mediterranean angle. However, Bonnici doesn’t exclude tackling other topics as well. Freelance journalists from around the world are welcome to approach Amphora Media with their story ideas.

“We would like to communicate about issues that matter most to people. I think sometimes journalists have a predisposition to write about things they feel the public should know about, not necessarily what the public wants to know about,” Bonnici said.

When asked about how he wants to differentiate Amphora Media from other outlets, Bonnici said that one thing they want to focus on is communicating complex investigations in simple yet bold ways.

“Text front. Effectively moving away from image focused journalism. To really make it high impact and understandable,” Bonnici said.

According to Bonnici, this all boils down to effective communication – ensuring that the message is easily digestible for the audience.

“It’s not just about writing the message, but also effectively translating it for everyone and transmitting it to everyone to consume,” Bonnici said.

“I’m delighted that the Daphne Foundation has launched this project. There’s no better tribute to Daphne’s memory than responsible, competent, slow journalism that exposes corruption and wrongdoing. I look forward to reading their work,” Manuel Delia, an author and podcast host who’s been following the case of Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination closely since day one, told The Fix.  

On its website, Amphora Media says it adheres to a code of ethics that focuses on stringent fact-checking, protecting the confidentiality of its sources, and the disclosure of any potential conflicts of interest.

“You have to earn people’s trust in journalism. And this is actually what we’re going to set out to do,” Bonnici said.

Source of the cover photo: cottonbro studio via Pexel

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