Is it election fever? Austin Gatt does have a reputation for being a bulldozer, but he seems to be upsetting more of his PN colleagues than usual at the moment.
What exactly is he trying to prove? First we had the Michael Falzon fracas, with the latter resigning as chairman of the Water Services Corporation, the minister not accepting the resignation, and then a compromise with Mr Falzon (probably the PN’s most prolific defender in the media) staying on.
Then we got quite a different outcome to another resignation from within Minister Gatt’s half of a portfolio, the PBS. His reaction to editorial board chairman John Camilleri’s resignation was more publicly acrimonious, with the publication of the resignation letter and the Minister’s long-winded response.
Mr Camilleri, another Nationalist stalwart, did not mince his words. The process on choosing the PBS winter 2007 schedule was “unjust, not transparent, or even credible”. Moreover, it did not respect the regulations established by the board of directors and approved by the two ministers involved, he maintained.
According to the Public Statement of Intent, the editorial board should evaluate all proposals from a content perspective. That evaluation is forwarded to the board of directors and the final decision on forthcoming schedules should be taken in conjunction with the editorial board. “This did not happen”, maintained Mr Camilleri and he accused the board of directors of abuse of power.
Mr Camilleri wanted to make it clear that he agrees that PBS should not operate at a financial loss. However, one cannot ignore the rules, using profit as the only criteria, he said.
“It is therefore in protest at the miserable state the national broadcasting service has been reduced to, by the majority of the PBS board of directors, that I present my resignation”, he wrote to Minister Gatt.
This time the minister accepted the resignation. After all this whole saga had already been thrashed out in public, with neither John Camilleri nor Austin Gatt compromising and with Francis Zammit Dimech, the minister with the other half of the portfolio, sitting precariously like Humpty Dumpty on the wall, while giving his Cheshire cat smile. He amazingly manages to hang on so the king’s horses were not needed.
But it did not stop Minister Gatt getting on his high horse in response to Mr Camilleri’s accusations. Instead of responding to the wrongs spelt out by the latter, he went on and on about the PBS news and how the editorial board had “independenza totali” (total autonomy) as far as the news was concerned, and that this has resulted in partisan slanted news, “almost completely disappearing”.
Well, actually saying that the PBS news has almost, completely disappeared as news, would be more accurate.
Anyway, broadcasting is not just news. And the PSI rules refer to all proposals. You cannot tell an editorial board that it has absolute autonomy on one set of programmes but not on another.
It just does not make sense.
Besides, the programmes Mr Camilleri resigned over not the news form public opinion.
Minister Gatt should be concerned about preventing partisanship and bias on all programmes. He makes a big song and dance about how getting the news to be non-partisan was a hard nut to crack.
What he in fact is talking about is the restructuring in the PBS newsroom. Weeding out the staff that was deemed biased. Does he think the public is that naïve to believe that other programmes do not have the same potential, if not more, for bias than the news bulletin?
However, since we are not privy to which programmes with good content did not make the PBS schedule, we don’t know whether we have missed anything worth getting excited about.
Rather what has intrigued me is Minister Gatt’s reaction. He states that despite Mr Camilleri’s interpretation of the PSI rules, government policy is as clear as crystal that the board of directors have the final say on programmes, while the editorial board’s function is consultative.
But hang on a minute; what is the point of having a consultative board if it is ignored? And don’t the editorial board have the final say over the news?
Austin Gatt really had a bee in his bonnet buzzing the same incessant drone in his letter replying to Mr Camilleri’s resignation. He starts off and ends on the same note – the success of the PBS news. He concluded his winding missive saying that what has surprised him is that what was more difficult succeeded.
“When you consider that the editorial board’s position is in the driving seat and the board of directors follows vis-à-vis the news, i.e. completely opposite to what happened with the other programmes, and the news was considered a more difficult partisan nut to crack. I question how come the reforms in the news worked but not in the other programmes.”
This from Austin Gatt is disappointing. He is usually sharper than most. Perhaps the reason why the news reforms succeeded, though I have my reservations on that success, is precisely because the editorial board was in “the driving seat and the board of directors followed”!
Of course neither are right.
You cannot have a board of directors being dictated to by an editorial board on one programme and you cannot have an editorial board ignored by the board of directors on another, and that is the last word.