|
Harry Vassallo has a word or two to say about the reportage on NET TV
The fascist sympathies of the founding fathers of Malta’s Nationalist Party are no secret. They earned the wartime leadership internment in prisoner-of-war camps in far off Uganda. They became exiles and martyrs. Their followers faced the fascist bombs without them. I doubt that anybody in Malta was clearly aware of or had endorsed the darker side of Mussolini’s Italy. After the first fascist bomb fell on Malta, nobody would have dared admit it anyway.
Making the connection has been a dangerous pastime for Partito Nazionalista antagonists ever since. Somebody will one day write a thesis on the libel suits fought and won by the PN proving that it is not a Fascist party and having the right to be offended at the comparison. It has helped that the Maltese judiciary itself has a strong law and order bias. Never until last Thursday was I so tempted to explore the darkness of the black background of the PN badge.
That morning I attended a press conference given by Alternattiva Demokratika – The Green Party at the premises of the Edible Oil Refining Company. The point to be made was the commercial viability of eco-business projects such as the production of biodiesel from waste cooking oil. It seemed so harmless.
It was also very fitting that a Green party should encourage such initiatives and allow them such publicity as it can while seeking the cameras to publicise its candidacy for the European Parliament elections. The early morning press conference was well attended and I was innocently pleased to see a NET TV camera crew in attendance.
Knowing of the PN’s current policy to avoid mention of Alternattiva Demokratika or of Arnold Cassola as the silent theme of its EP campaign, I would not have been surprised at the absence of the NET journalists. They almost never attend anything hosted by the Greens.
As often happens, I was unable to watch television that evening, I did not catch the main news bulletins. Coming home late I zapped until I came to a Net TV late news broadcast that covered the morning’s event. I was pleased and listened carefully. There was a full and correct account of the biodiesel project. Great, we had succeeded in advertising the stuff with NET TV viewers. And where were we?
Unbelievably the Net editorial managed to show a film of a relatively small boardroom table at which we sat without showing either Arnold Cassola or me. It must go down in the annals of television broadcasting as some sort of achievement. I would not have believed that it could be possible had I not been there.
The news item altogether omitted mention of the Green Party although the event was a visit to the premises of the Edible Oil refining Company by the party Chairperson and the only European Parliament election candidate. The visit itself was news, not the fact that biodiesel is available. Biodiesel has been available for some time. It was not a social event we had attended with others. We had called the meeting and invited the press.
What struck me was the stupidity of the omission. Other press people were present and would make their own reports.
Viewers who caught the PN late news would read the next day’s newspapers and catch them out. Some may have seen PBS news editions which gave a fair coverage. How could they hope to get away with it? How could they be so insolent with their own supporters, their viewers? If they take such pains to create a false reality on such a minor matter, how else do they manipulate the minds of their flock? Do they really believe that PN supporters are all mindless idiots? Fooling most of the people most of the time is the name of their game.
Greens have suffered endless structural violence at the hands of national institutions from which we are excluded and can afford to shrug off this latest twist of the knife. We know that pluralism means just two in Malta and that each of the two try to be just one and all alone. We know why the heart of the PN badge is black. We know that they are stupid propagandists uselessly trying to prevent the future.
What I would like to know is how Nationalists feel about being treated like complete fools by their own propaganda machine. Do they get upset when they are treated like sheep? This is no biased reporting. This is not the case of laying emphasis on the wrong words to divert a message. This is an omission, a complete omission, a complete misrepresentation of the facts. Net TV viewers watching this news item went away with a completely wrong idea of what actually happened. The facts were completely perverted.
I would dearly like to know what prominent Nationalists have to say about this. Ugo Mifsud Bonnici? Guido de Marco? Censu Tabone? Are they not ashamed? Can they be drawn to condemn their own party? How about our new Prime Minister? Our dear PN Ministers who so often and fondly remind us of the values of the Nationalist Party? How about Nationalist MPs? Will nobody from the backbenches make his voice heard to disassociate himself or herself from the outrage?
The Yes to EU candidates in the EP campaign were our colleagues until a very short time ago. They are the fresh clean faces of the PN in this campaign. It is for them that the PN runs its campaign of silence and absurd omission. How does Joanna Drake feel about being served and used in this way? I have a strong gut feeling that in Joe Friggieri the philosopher will defeat the politician and he will not be able to stomach this. Does Simon Busuttil still think that the PN is a centre party? It starts left of centre and heads right. We found out how far right last Thursday.
David Casa is a party apparatchik. I do not expect any joy from him nor the guts to go against the current. He was the one to ask me to step down off the stage at the ‘Yes’ to EU referendum celebration. He did not mind asking me to speak at all the rousing events before the referendum. At Palace Square he suddenly became very pure about not mixing politics with the politics-free campaign in favour of EU membership. Malta was celebrating and I was a dirty politician. It was at that moment that the shutter came down on Green access to the media. There was an election to be fought and Greens were to be utterly excluded at all costs. In PN-printed material celebrating accession I have been edited out of the pictures including the one where the Greens helped to build the civil society alliance in favour of membership. Check it out.
Michael Falzon I will not bother to ask. He runs the show at NET TV. He must be one of the main architects of the outrageous omission campaign. I just cannot imagine him sitting in the European Parliament. This was the institution that was upset about Haider’s government coalition with the PPE in Austria. This is the place that has serious qualms about Le Pen and Fini. He just does not fit in.
Structural violence is a lot worse than being hit on the head by truncheons. Nobody notices that a part of a country’s political life is eliminated. Nobody gets to notice that democracy is dying. I love Super One TV. Their bias is so blatant that it is worth watching for entertainment value. Net TV is no fun. You never get to know how you have been manipulated if the manipulation is an omission. Nobody has any defences against omission. It fools everybody. It warps every mind. Mussolini was an amateur.
In 1985 I compiled the 1985 Human Rights report for Malta and co-edited it with Richard Cachia Caruana. It still makes chilling reading. At the time the PN were excluded from the broadcasting media and were forced to broadcast from abroad. I thought that I formed part of a citizens’ coalition fighting for basic freedoms. By 1989 I was convinced that the country needed a third party. Today the PN is itself the menace. Victimised idealist Enrico Mizzi would not recognise his own party.
Dr Vassallo is Chairperson of Alternattiva Demokratika – The Green Party
www.alternattiva.org.mt
hcvassallo@kemmunet.net.mt
|
