Particle gardens

Whenever viewership statistics are published, most often TVM news comes up trumps. The administration of PBS, and of course, the staff of the newsroom, gloat.

Most of us have at times handled scoop-worthy documents. But that does not mean we felt justified in exposing them to the four winds- Tanja Cilia

There may be many reasons why a news bulletin beats its rivals, not least that whereas it is not ‘the best’, the others are also-rans.

Sometimes, indeed, I despair at the way items are presented. It’s often as if a deadline is looming and the quota of political/human interest or ‘brights’/mundane items has not been met – and news is dredged out of who-knows-where to cobble together the desired ratio.

Then, of course, we have the tiptoeing through the tulips, just in case anyone from the Broadcasting Authority is doing some monitoring.

• While all Italian TV stations told us that Lino Banfi’s second Honoris Causa degree follows the one he was awarded in Malta three years ago, not one radio or TV station picked up the story. And a local magazine that had a full-page article about him did not even mention this fact. This, then, is what passes for ‘research’.

• Some argue that mentioning a specific place would constitute unfair advertising. Yet this is not observed across the board, because there are times when theatres, schools and other places are mentioned in connection with cultural events. And of course, TV visuals always catch the display of the location on the podium, or behind the main speaker. It is a foregone conclusion that all these places are mentioned by name in listings of cultural events.

• The less said about pronunciation of names or foreign words, the better.

• I read the e-mail exchange at the centre of the latest conspiracy theory and regret to say I was unimpressed. First and foremost, it was not nice of whoever stole/copied/ misappropriated the said correspondence to leave Joseph Muscat and Sabrina Agius’ e-mail addresses on the copies that were subsequently published. Is this not breaking the Data Protection Act?

Also, if Agius was that unhappy with her job and was seeking alternative employment – whether or not to promote or ‘spy for’ the Labour Party – must she not have communicated with other people too?

Why is it, then, that only this selection was published? Surely Agius has friends and ex-colleagues from all the places where she worked, who sent her messages as well?

It would have been perfectly logical for the administration of RTK to shock Agius into speechlessness by shoving the sheaf of papers in her face when she applied for the job that she had been doing anyway, albeit in a caretaker capacity, and tell her ‘Look, young lady, this is why you can’t be trusted...’, rather than sit on them until the subsequent hullaballoo broke. If, of course, they were available at that juncture.

Moreover, this was evidently a rush job – unless whoever procured the mails is usually that lax with editing or feared being caught red-handed. Agius occasionally appears to talk to herself. Whereas some e-mails fall on one another’s heels, there is a hiatus between others.

I also noticed that, despite the fact that some are seeking to put a flirtatious slant on the messages, most are non-committal. Whoever did the editing did not notice that he used the same two mails twice. Of course, there remains the moot point that a person could have used an account to which he has access to send e-mails from it to make it appear as if the owner of the account had done so. This has happened before and will no doubt happen again, to people besides Agius and Muscat.

(Net News head) Nathaniel Attard, hand on heart, tells us he did not come by the cache illegally. Of course not – they were probably handed to him on a silver platter. Most of us have at times handled hot-potato, scoop-worthy documents. But that does not mean we felt justified in exposing them to the four winds because they were ‘in the national interest’. We handed them over to the proper authorities, because we were not interested in humiliating anyone publicly.

In effect, Attard, intentionally or not, served as cat’s-paw to the perpetrator. Like the person whose voice was heard on the original post-Eurovision party video-clip, this person must now be torn between the wish to be feted as a hero, and the constant fear of being found out.

• Radju Malta has a new collection of contributors whose raison d’être is going on air to say ‘erm’. Norma Saliba tries to coerce a semblance of coherence from her guests; Susan Mulvaney marshalls the thoughts of guests who fudge ad nauseam; presenters use the dread­ed syllable in between their monotonic ramblings; and people who know zilch about music masquerade as DJs.

• The Phoenicians has won Chris and Maurice Micallef three more prestigious Gold Awards, for Documentary, History and Research, in the US Prestige Film Awards (www. prestigefilmaward.com). In the Best Shorts Competition, (www.bestshorts.net) it won an Award of Excellence for documentary and two Awards of Merit for direction and research. The film has now won 20 international awards.

• Dominic Aquilina is the oriflamme of Maltese sports photography. He recently held a brilliant exhibition at the Cavalieri Hotel. To avoid being accused of unfair advertising, the newscaster told us this was held in a “hotel in Sliema”. Calling all hotels in Sliema to discover the venue would have brought no joy; the Cavalieri Hotel is actually in St Julian’s.

television@timesofmalta.com