Dateline: 7.30 pm on Thursday 6 September 2007: Immediately after the twirling red globe introducing the principal television news bulletin on One News, an innocuous remark of mine saying that I was seeking advice on an MLP statement makes it to the main item, eclipsing whatever else had happened locally and in the whole wide world beyond our shores, including – incredibly - the death of Luciano Pavarotti.
I don’t know whether I should have felt honoured or angry at the slight to Luciano. “Nessun Dorma” never felt so haunting! Caro Luciano, perdonami!
Dateline: 7.30 pm on Saturday 8 September 2007: One News television reports that the country commemorated Victory Day – one of our national feasts. On the screen one could see the soldiers doing their parade and all the pomp and circumstance with which the feast is officially celebrated. Except that, somehow the presence of the President of the Republic and of the Prime Minister was obliterated from the story –commentary-wise.
The two men were representing the country celebrating one of its national feasts: one as Head of State and the other as Head of Government. Yet One News behaved as if they didn’t even exist! As far as my limited brains could tell, they were not representing a political party or something that One News viewers are being indoctrinated to ignore. But, then, who am I to understand the logic behind One News?
Dateline: 7.30 pm on Monday 10 September 2007: I again get the prime slot in the One News bulletin – as had been happening for almost a week. I am tempted to become full of myself with importance, being the principal protagonist of the most significant event occurring in the twirling red globe continually for seven whole days – the time it took God to create it!
Another news item says that the Acting Head of the National Office of Statistics (NSO) had said that prices are going up. It turns out that the news item was referring to a press conference announcing that a new household budgetary survey was going to be launched. During a short interview, the Acting Head of the NSO explained that after 10 years it was time for another such survey, as buying patterns had changed and some prices had gone up while others had gone down. The press conference had actually been given by Tonio Fenech, Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Finance. By some magical spell, on One News, Tonio Fenech was not mentioned once and was nowhere to be seen.
Dateline: 7.30 pm on Tuesday 11 September 2007: Incredibly, I am still main news item fodder. Alas, the other television stations keep ignoring me. Instead, they report the Prime Minister’s visit to Dubai where Smart City Malta was launched internationally. The largest foreign investment and the most comprehensive development project in the history of Independent Malta is of no consequence to the country’s future, as far as One News is concerned.
This is the kind of news broadcasts being dished out every day by One News. For them, Mater Dei is an expensive place where lifts break down, flooding occurs frequently and where the owners have passed on a long list of snags to the contractors – as if such teething problems were out of proportion with the magnitude of the project. By the way (just in case there are any readers who only follow One News) Mater Dei is a state of the art hospital built by the present administration for the benefit of all Maltese citizens.
The way the One News bulletins try to “hide” facts reminds me of the way the Chinese were treated by the official media under the Maoist regime half a century ago. As a result of that way of doing things, the ordinary Chinese citizen took some two decades to learn that a human had landed on the moon. The problem seems to have been with the detail. The Maoist regime abhorred the country that had successfully sent one man to take one small step on the lunar surface, so they feigned ignorance about the giant step for mankind. The “worrisome” details are eliminated at all costs, even at the expense of the broad picture being completely lost.
Faced with this travesty of what news should be, the Broadcasting Authority sits back, shirking from its duty with the excuse that the programmes of the radio and television stations owned by the PN and the MLP balance each other out from a political point of view. But this is not just a matter of the political balance that is required by the Constitution. It is really a matter of broadcasting standards that the Authority is duty bound to uphold. In plain and blunt words, the issue is whether a broadcasting station should be allowed to behave as if the people of Malta are all morons… and as if news bulletins are nothing but a crude political weapon in the MLP arsenal.
The manipulation going on in One News bulletins is a blatant insult to the intelligence of the viewers, whoever they may be. It is an exercise masquerading as journalism purportedly to inform viewers of what has been happening beyond the four walls of their abode but in which the medium of television is used unashamedly to hound and harass political adversaries. For the Institute of Journalists and the Committee of Journalists – or whatever the two groups are called – there is nothing wrong with this parody of journalism.
Obviously, the twirling red globe introducing the news bulletin is there only for decoration – much like the balls hanging from a Christmas Tree. The world according to One News is indeed an absurdly strange one.
Every day, One News broadcasts are reaching ever higher levels of absurdity. Unless, of course, I really am the most important man in the world.
