When tragedy strikes, we can react in three ways: fight, flight or freeze. When her sister, Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, was assassinated on 16th October 2017, Corinne Vella responded by joining her family in the fight for justice - a battle which, eight years later, is still ongoing.

Although she only works with the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation on a voluntary basis, as the go-to-person for Media Relations, her job is to keep the information narrative on track. "Once you're faced with a situation like this, you know, everybody did what they could. And this is what I can do", Corinne tells me.

Her years of experience in the media and communications sector equipped her to handle the media storm that ensued in the aftermath of Daphne's murder: "At some point, everyone in the world seemed to have my number."

The Foundation was originally set up to provide a framework for the family's mission, holding those responsible for Daphne's assassination responsible and pushing for legal reforms to protect journalists.

A landmark trial in the quest for justice

When I talk to Corinne, it is in the weeks after the trial of Robert Agius and Jamie Vella, who were sentenced to life imprisonment for supplying the car bomb used in Daphne's murder.

Corinne describes the case as a "landmark" and the outcome of "excellent work by good people in a bad system", but says, "True justice would mean everybody involved in Daphne's murder gets what they deserve. And everybody she exposed also gets what they deserved."

There are some glimmers of hope. Last year, Joseph Muscat became the first former prime minister to have corruption charges brought against him for accepting bribes in a hospital privatisation scandal, which Daphne had investigated before her murder. More high-profile corruption cases have been opened this year.

Protection through collaboration

The Foundation is a small outfit of eight full-timers, including one volunteer, who work to fulfill the Foundation’s mission. It has taken up Daphne's mantle, uncovering corruption in Malta.

As a freelance investigative journalist who published on her own blog, Running Commentary, Daphne was an investigator, writer, editor, and publisher rolled into one.

Amphora Media, an investigative journalism platform launched earlier this year by the Foundation, picks up where Daphne left off. Less than six months old, it already hosts an impressive archive of stories, reporting on dodgy deals, Malta's waste crisis, and the golden passport scheme.

Corinne tells me Amphora Media was created to fill the gap left by the erosion of legacy media, which is struggling to adapt to the changing, fast-paced world of online media. The Foundation decided to do things differently, collaborating with different newsrooms to work on investigations. According to Corinne, "there's never been anything like this in Malta, a collaborative platform, where the purpose is collaboration, rather than competition."

It all started with the cash-for-passports scheme. In 2021, the Foundation led and coordinated a collaborative investigation by independent news outlets in Malta, who all worked together for the first time ever, and collectively published a series of articles named the passport papers.

Amphora Media was eventually launched in February this year. Its collaborative approach, Corinne says, creates a layer of protection: "You know, an investigation throws up several possible leads. And then, towards the end of the investigation, there's a decision on who's going to publish what angle of the bigger story. And that in itself provides protection."

Negative optimism

This picture of teamwork tells a different story from the one Corinne describes in the lead-up to Daphne's assassination. While Daphne's investigations were referenced in mainstream media outlets, they shied away from taking her stories further or putting their weight behind her findings. "But the net result of that is that she eventually became isolated", she concludes, such as when one of the subjects of her reporting quietly threatened independent newsrooms with potentially ruinous legal action in the USA and the UK.

Despite the progress, Corinne is careful not to overstate the developments in Malta's media landscape, telling me, "I have a sinking fear that the reason nobody's being targeted the way she was is that nobody's taking on as much as she did individually." While she is willing to acknowledge the "negative optimism" of safety created by shared responsibility, she caveats this, saying, "But if that's the only safeguard, that's not a very healthy situation to be in. We know there are risks. Four years on, most of the recommendations of the public inquiry into Daphne’s assassination have not been implemented yet."

While journalists and media outlets are finding new ways to work to keep themselves safe, awareness of the danger hasn't translated into significant legal protection. If anything, according to Corinne, "There's been an erosion of rights in terms of using leverage to get accountability, which has implications for journalists’ safety. It's still really difficult to get information from the government and public authorities, and the government recently pushed through a law that removed citizens’ right to petition the courts directly to initiate an inquiry. That was the only tool to enforce accountability when institutions themselves fail to do so"

Beyond Malta, the Foundation has urged the EU to take action against the unprecedented killing of journalists by Israeli authorities in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and backed the Netherlands' call to review the EU-Israel Association Agreement.

Maltese government still up to its old tricks

The Foundation's contribution to Liberties' Media Freedom Report, which found little progress in the media environment, the lack of adoption of safeguards to improve journalist safety, and inadequate transposition of the EU Anti-SLAPP Directive, sparked a hostile reaction from the Maltese government. Still up to its old tricks, Corinne tells me the government attempted to discredit the findings by pointing out its author, "as though that somehow negated the value of the information we provided, rather than being seen as more authoritative and better informed than any other NGO on this particular matter."

For the Foundation, Corinne shares, being part of Liberties network, "it's given us a basis on which we can take on more ambitious targets than we would have otherwise taken." In a political climate where the work of activists and journalists is more fraught than ever, collaboration is our greatest advantage.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity