Last Tuesday the Broadcasting Authority took a decision which in real terms means political parties can continue dictating whom we see or listen to on public service broadcasting as, in the authority’s opinion, the system “worked so satisfactorily over the past years for all parties”. This decision beggars belief. Independently of the motivations, which I always assume to be the best possible, thehe reason given to justify it is simply incredible.
The parties are deciding who to hide and who to expose- Fr Joe Borg
On June 24 I penned a column entitled ‘Journalists are not lamp-posts’. This title is lifted from Jeremy Paxman, the BBC journalist who had said journalists should respect politicians as much as dogs respect lamp-posts.
In Malta, quite the contrary, we have allowed the development of a practice which considers journalists as lamp-posts and politicians as dogs.
In our country, a producer or presenter abdicates his right and duty to choose guests for his or her discussion/talk show and hands over this right to political parties. I appealed for the repeal of this practice while confessing that I bore some responsibility since I did not fight it hard enough when I was chairman of the PBS editorial board.
I had then naïvely proposed that the Broadcasting Authority should take it upon itself to correct this perverse practice. This would have been a golden occasion for the authority to give the lie to those who say that it defends more the interests of the political parties than the interests of the public and the journalists. It was not to be. The authority at that time stayed put.
Fortunately the PBS editorial board decided to run the gauntlet. It instructed its producers to stop the practice. It did not do this recklessly. Several top PBS officials said they took the plunge after consulting the chairman of the Broadcasting Authority. But when push came to the shove the authority decided that this procedure should not be changed since it “worked so satisfactorily over the past years for all parties”.
Who is this procedure satisfactory for? The BA would have been right had it said the procedure worked satisfactorily for the political parties. But public service broadcasting should surely not be for the service of political parties. They have their own stations at their service.
Public service broadcasting is for the service of the public, and the public has certainly not been served well by this practice. It is very sad that our regulator believes that if the political parties are happy with a particular situation then let no dog bark.
The origin of this procedure was probably well-intentioned but since then it has morphed into a presumed divine right for political parties which sorely abused it. Thus, when translated into practice, the decision of the authority means we can watch on public service television only those who the political parties want us to watch. The parties are deciding who to hide and who to expose.
This decision will give a new lease of life to a system which is manipulative of both audiences and journalists. I concede that they can legitimately choose whoever they want for political programmes organised by the Broadcasting Authority but they should not be allowed to do this for other programmes.
Journalistic programmes belong to journalists, who are there to serve audiences. Journalists are duty-bound to present audiences with the whole gamut of the parties’ menu of candidates, warts and all. Producers and presenters should consequently be the ones to choose their guests. This practice now mandated by the authority forces journalists to abandon their journalistic role to take over the role of spin doctors.
Had there been any evidence that PBS in the past had tried to present lightweight Labour candidates against Nationalist heavyweights, there would have been some sort of an excuse for the authority to act the way it acted.
But the contrary is the truth. For example, TVM had invited the deputy leader of the Labour Party, Anglu Farrugia, for a programme but the party decided to send a new candidate in his stead, only to complain later that PBS was not inviting enough Labour MPs to their programmes.
This decision of the editorial board has to be seen in the context of several decisions it took to make more manifest PBS’s respect for the constitutional provisions of balance and due impartiality.
It had prohibited presenters from taking public controversial positions and ordered them to stop authoring blogs. It also decided to stop one of its most able presenters when she decided to stand for general election; a decision which will probably land PBS in court.
Besides, the decision of PBS is in line with the practice in other democratic countries which have a long tradition of respect for the freedom of the press.
The authority’s decision flies in the face of this tradition. The Times was right to say it “is a serious blow to the freedom of the press and a grave affront to all those who have had enough of politicians wanting to haunt every corner of their life”.
It is a pity that the authority has decided that politicians have the right to treat journalists and audiences with the same respect that dogs treat lamp-posts.
• Last week was not all bad news. It started with the opening of the academic year about which I will comment on my blog on timesofmalta.com. Here I note the 50th anniversary of the release of the Beatles’ first hit record, Love Me Do. It was not one of their best records but following that release music history and popular culture were changed forever.
The Beatles are a staple part the 1960s – that eventful, extraordinary and most wonderful decade of the last century when man landed on the moon, the Church inaugurated Vatican II, student and flower power were the order of the day, Malta became an independent State – and the most Earth-shaking development of all – I became a Lyceum student!
The boys from Liverpool are still very popular. Their music continues to enchant, entertain and inspire millions; yours truly included.
joseph.borg@um.edu.mt