In this abridged version of the two-part analysis in his J’accuse blog, Jacques Rene Zammit takes on Bondiplus, and how last Monday’s programme on ‘Plategate’ signalled the death of investigative journalism. Thinking clearly was not allowed…
Last Monday, journalism in Malta descended to an unprecedented depth.
For a long time now, Maltese journalism has had to carry the labels and innuendos that are the result of being just another graft in the political game between two behemoths intent on a zero-sum race to mediocrity. Until Monday, 22 February, journalism was a victim of partisan bigotry turned perpetrator.
Last Monday, in a programme conducted by Malta’s record holding, longest-running talk-show host, this unholy alliance of political convenience and neutered journalism gave birth to a new child: we entered a Brave New World where political expediency as we know it (the long arm of the parties) was phased away and the “journalistic” frankenstein attempted clumsily to take its first few steps in its very own interest. Elsewhere they call it “wheels within wheels”.
Last Monday Bondiplus tackled Plategate. In actual fact the subject and content of the programme was not exactly clear until Lou Bondì “facebooked” a few pointers: blogs, ethics and obviously Plategate (not the exact term but what it summarises). By 9:54am on Monday, Lou put an end to speculation (sort of) with his Facebook status update: “Il-blog ta’ Daphne Caruana Galizia, il-Magistrat Consuelo Scerri Herrera u il-Perit Robert Musumeci diskussi l-lejla f’Bondiplus”.
We did not need to know who the guests on the programme would be – Lou had been pre-empted by Daphne who had informed her readers long before any statement by Bondiplus that “media expert” (we are always reminded this in case we forget) Father Joe Borg would be the only guest on the programme. Questions had began to be asked why none of the “subjects” of the discussion would be present on the programme – for the answer to that we’d have to wait for the very feeble responses given during the programme itself.
Cut, paste and edit Having gone through the whole rigamarole of “I am friends with the subjects (does he have them on Facebook?)” but without stating live on TV that he was also a guest at one of the by now infamous dinner parties thrown by the Magistrate and the Architect, Lou kicks off the “piecing together of the jigsaw” with excerpts from the police interrogation of Daphne Caruana Galizia.
One would expect that if we are going to examine this particular case, we should try to ask ourselves (as journalists investigating the issue in order to see what ethical principle to apply) when did all this start. More than that we should ask, how?
The answer couldn’t be simpler. Daphne Caruana Galizia declared an open war of information on or around the 19 January when she first posted the idea that she knew of the goings-on at Scerri-Herrera’s parties and that she would soon come down upon them with great vengeance and furious anger in retaliation.
It’s not like our happy couple of Bondì and Borg were unaware of these facts – they took the proof contained in the blog as read. For the purposes of the investigative programme it was not possible for Bondì to honestly ignore the real origin of this issue – the police report made by Daphne’s husband on the 8 December, 2009. That report is a public document – made even more public by l-orizzont. It was the perceived threat that the report would be made “even more public” (an interesting recurring concept in Plategate) that prompted Daphne’s reaction and kicked off the blog.
This information is crucial for a proper analysis of the ethical element of journalistic reporting. Whenever we are going to ask: “Should a journalist go public with a certain type of information?” within the context of Plategate, we cannot ignore why Daphne went public with the information she collected. If media guru Father Joe Borg needed examples he needn’t have made the gargantuan effort of reading articles on the Sunday papers (it MUST be gargantuan since he still insists that the mainstream media is silent on the issue) – he had one right there yelling in front of him.
Bondì chose to start from the police interrogation. No prizes for guessing what that choice of setting tells us about the bias in the programme. Daphne is the victim being interrogated by the police. We already had to make do with the highly investigative, very talk-show host, extremely credible excuse that Daphne had said all she needed to in the blog so she needn’t be on the programme – so much for Bondì’s prowess in cross-examination. The least Where’s Everybody could have done is dispatch the record-breaking OBU to Bidnija and get Daphne to read her choice snippets of her replies. Were they afraid of the dog?
The viewer being introduced to the programme gets the idea of Daphne the victim of a legal aggression – as Lou allows the police to do the questioning. What needed to be discussed was not the content of the “interrogation”, but why Daphne ended up there. Did Daphne do the right thing by publishing information she had been privy too for some time at the moment she did? Was Scerri-Herrera entitled to react with the legal proceedings she chose to react? When should a journalist – blogger or mainstream – be protected for this kind of whistleblowing? As it is, the police interrogation clip turned out to be useful only to picture Daphne as the victim threatened with jail and set the tone for the viewing public in the direction Bondiplus was choosing.
Bondiplus have every right to make editorial choices they wish. When these demonstrate patent bias and an inability to perform the service they promise the viewers, then persons are in every right to criticise without being called names.
The guild of the dumb Like some latter-day John the Baptist, Father Joe had prepared the way with his allegation that the mainstream media had remained silent on the issue under discussion. Bondì turned out to be a willing accomplice in what could only be perceived as either (a) an attempt at trying to inflate the pertinence of his only guest on the programme or (b) an attempt to deviate public attention from other possible perspectives on the subject matter.
There were two references to Sunday paper articles on the programme. One was to an article by Toni Abela on Illum (the non-scoop) and the other was by Father Joe Borg who was so mortally offended by an article on it-Torca that he forgot the name of the perpetrator (Petronius Melitensis – Peter of Malta – is Latin so difficult for a priest?). Other than that, zilch.
A quick run-through of the Sunday papers produces the following: Sunday Times (Editorial ‘The Magistrate Debate, Roamer’s Column); Malta Independent on Sunday (Jacques Renè Zammit on 14 and 21 February, Pamela Hansen, Josanne Cassar); MaltaToday (Bondì was Consuelo’s Dinner Guest, Saviour Balzan, David Friggieri, Raphael Vassallo).
That is just the Sunday papers – and not the news reports. Forget Bondì for a moment – he seems to have a very personal, unprofessional approach to what is a paper and what is not (probably depending on convenience), but Father Joe Borg could not claim to not know of the replies to his blog. I posted a comment on his blog pointing out that a number of replies to his questions were available on J’accuse.
Here is Father Joe in his latest post-Bondiplus blog on the silence of the media: “The mainstream media have a role to play: a role of investigation and commentary. This role is being abjectly abdicated.” To which we can only reply: absolutely absurd.
The issue Their criterion that ultimately dismisses everything but the Father from being relevant to the programme and its discussion, baffles belief. The only reaction we will get (if we get one) is predictable. Lou will probably dismiss this either as (a) an attempt of this blog and its owner to get place on the mainstream media or (b) claim in his most recent style that he does not consider this to be a paper (or MaltaToday – as we saw in his rabid reaction to the pertinent questions posed by Matthew Vella). Of course he cannot say the same about the Times but his “friend” has seen to that. Here’s Daphne commenting about Ray Bugeja (The Times’ editor):
“It is not just the magistrate and the politician who have compromised themselves by consorting with the people from Super One, various newspaper editors, and certain other politicians and magistrates/judges. It is also their guests who have compromised themselves by accepting. This is becoming more obvious by the day. Take the editor of The Times, for example (a man I respect and for whom I worked). It turns out that he accepted an invitation to dinner at the home of the magistrate and Robert Musumeci – not a large buffet, but an intimate thing round the dining-room table.
“This makes it more difficult for him to adopt a clinical approach to investigating either of them when the need arises. Even if he succeeds in overcoming the inevitable crisis of conscience (‘I was a guest in your home and now I must go after you and examine whether you are up to no good’), public perception will be beset by question marks.”
See? J’accuse is not the press. MaltaToday is straight out of the Benny Hill Academy and the Times? Well the Times is tainted because one of its editors is dining with the enemy. But hang on! Didn’t Lou Bondì also attend dinner parties at the Scerri Herrera residence? What makes Lou so different? In his rabid reply to Matthew Vella, Lou omitted to answer this question and instead chose to point out that even Saviour Balzan was a guest at some point. There you go. Wheels within wheels within wheels. Which still doesn’t change the question: What makes Lou Bondì so different?
The selective manner in which the guest at the programme was chosen and the material from the press was taken bade no good for the impartiality of the programme. There are two possibilities: either intentional distortion of the facts or hopeless research work. Both are a serious indictment on a programme whose English slogan is “Thinking Allowed”.
The plea of ignorance Father Joe Borg twice began his sentences with “I don’t know the code of ethics” – rather unprepared on the subject matter; the least one would have expected was a quick read-through of the code under journalistic review. How can you be asking yourself how far a journalist can go if you fail to even read the basic texts relevant to the programme?
Lastly on this research issue, the programme panel spoke a number of times about the “allegations” made by Daphne Caruana Galizia that would have serious consequences if proven. We got a list of potential criminal sections Daphne could be accused and punished for but nowhere – NOWHERE – in the programme was there the slightest hint of a concrete list of the allegations. It is another pertinent issue to the use of the medium, the timing of the accusations and the ethics of the journalist vs. those of the magistrate.
Just to give a small example, were Lou and Joe referring to the allegations of “talcum powder” being present at parties? If not why not? If so, how come we did not get this more clearly? Why are they performing the huge disservice of riding on the vagueness of the accusations?
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