In two recent interviews, we saw representatives of national broadcasters failing to ask the right kind of questions and being woefully unprepared to challenge their interviewees.
In a TVM interview with Ronald Bugeja, broadcast on March 23, seasoned television presenter John Demanuele merely accepted the revisionist narrative spun by the author of a book that seeks to reinterpret Adolf Hitler’s intentions, behaviour and policies.
In what can be seen as a propagandist attempt to make the public reconsider what happened in Nazi Germany, the Hitler apologist sought to describe the dictator as being an innocent bystander in one of history’s worst genocides and most abominable series of war crimes.
Demanuele listened to Bugeja’s bilge without ever contradicting him or asking uncomfortable questions aimed at undermining the account of Hitler the author was imposing on the programme’s audience.
By politely going along with what Bugeja was saying, Demanuele was allowing the audience to get the impression that the author was an expert historian whose interpretation of Hitler’s behaviour rests upon solid foundations and is widely accepted by the academic community specialising in this historical period.
Demanuele’s inability to ask pointed questions and counter what Bugeja was saying by referring to well-established documentary evidence for Hitler’s crimes shows how ill-prepared he was for this interview.
Knowing the unorthodox nature of Bugeja’s book, the least he could have done is to have gone to the interview armed with a set of questions that would have put the author in the hot seat and forced him to defend his interpretation of history.
Instead, we got to see Bugeja plugging his book as if the interview was only meant to serve a promotional purpose. This is not the measured approach to information that viewers expect when watching a programme on a television channel operated by the national broadcaster.
In another interview that made headlines for the wrong reasons, on April 12, BBC technology correspondent James Clayton sabotaged a golden opportunity to probe Elon Musk’s running of Twitter by being negligent in his preparation of critical questions.
When he accused one of the world’s most powerful men of allowing the social networking platform to facilitate the spread of hate speech and misinformation, Clayton was unable to provide concrete examples upon being pressed by Musk.
The Hitler apologist sought to describe the dictator as being an innocent bystander- Daniel Xerri
Despite the existence of such evidence, Clayton was evasive and offered weak excuses for his inability to support his claims, so much so that Musk was able to wipe the floor with him and accuse him of lying. He transformed Clayton into a figure of ridicule for the millions of people who watched that segment of the interview.
Even though the interview revealed some interesting things about Musk’s leadership of Twitter, Clayton’s botched attempt to hold him accountable for the rise of misinformation also led to several accusations being levelled at the publicly-funded BBC for employing journalists who are incapable of displaying well-developed criticality.
What both interviews demonstrate is a lack of preparation for the task of deploying criticality to get to the truth. While criticality does not necessarily imply being negative about people’s views and assumptions, it means having the capacity to interrogate those views and assumptions in light of existing evidence and through logical argumentation.
In the case of Demanuele, there was no attempt to exercise a critical perspective. He was content to merely ask questions and make comments that comfortably gave Bugeja a stage from which to expound on his misrepresentation of one of history’s most cruel leaders.
Clayton, on the other hand, naively thought he could criticise Musk without needing to substantiate his claims, thus allowing the interviewee to turn the tables on him.
By failing to engage in criticality, Demanuele and Clayton risked eroding the public’s trust in the national broadcasters they work for. Given public expectations, the backlash against their errors was far-reaching.
As argued by veteran journalist Simon Jenkins, when a public broadcaster like the BBC “experiences a professional failure, it has no shortage of critics to supply vilification”.
However, he believes that such episodes should not detract from its capacity for critical journalism, which is one of the reasons why the public sees it as an unbiased and trustworthy news organisation.
To ensure that the public’s trust is not jeopardised, a capacity for criticality needs to be properly cultivated in those working for a public broadcaster. According to the journalist Warren Berger, this involves learning how to examine assumptions by asking the right kind of questions since these force people to think about things differently.
If this fails to happen, then Mark Lewis, a professor of literacy education, would be right in maintaining: “Much of today’s media lacks such criticality and caution; rather, it is full of talking heads spouting biased opinion either without thought or worry about the repercussions of their statements or with exact purpose to influence the electorate with unsubstantiated claims about social and political issues.”
Daniel Xerri is an educator.