Where balance is represented by (-10) + (-10) = -20

The state-owned Public Broadcasting Services should not be considering whether to produce more in-house current affairs programme because the Broadcasting Authority has requested it to do so. Any self-respecting station ought to build up and deploy in-house skills. Nor is it really a matter of balance, as implied by the BA's chairman on Thursday.

There should be proper recognition of the role of a state-owned station. There must also be value for the TV licence paid. It is typical that the issue did not arise in the objective context of satisfying the consumer. The BA's prompting was triggered by the fact that PBS is outsourcing programmes, and specifically from a company that is boycotted by one of the two main parties.

To speak of Xarabank, Bondi+, current affairs and balance in the same breath is totally inappropriate, even if the two programmes sometimes deal with current affairs. Such programmes require a balanced approach from any station, but particularly a state-owned station operating in our prevailing dismal situation. That situation consists of two political TV and radio groups dishing out raw, repetitive propaganda masquerading under the title of current affairs. They are allowed to do that by the BA because they "balance" each other.

A democrat with a slight knowledge of mathematics might disagree. The democratic spirit in such an observer would insist that democratic discussion cannot made up of propaganda, which is an inherently one-sided affair. The mathematician in him would point out that (-10)+(-10) = -20.

But then, democracy includes the right to partisanship. Partisan supporters of either of the main political parties extend their viewing and listening custom to their party's media, as is their democratic right. Balance in line with the BA's definition is assured, despite the minus-20 summation in terms of properly informed forming of opinion.

That is where the state sound and vision media come in. As broadcasters they must compete with the rest of the broadcasting sector to entertain with programmes, without sinking into the dredges of commercialism. Prevailing competition is quite strong, since the political media have become very forceful in what used to be a PBS monopoly with their own Maltese language serials, among other things.

As the state-owned broadcaster, PBS should also compete with top-grade news programmes. In that regard so-called balance still forces the PBS news bulletin to be a boringly repetitive rendering of the tediously repetitive declarations and outbursts of the political leaders, invariably followed by the constipated antithetic statements by "the other side" to pooh pooh the other "other side".

When it comes to current affairs programmes, PBS has abdicated its role. That should be to put forward productions that seek to analyse some current affair through critical examination by the stations' journalists, and where relevant by having a discussion about it with a balance of participants. That role is not to be mixed up with what Xarabank and Bondi+ offer.

In the main Xarabank offers popular entertainment, simultaneously fed and diminished by the "gifts" with which the live-sic-audience are (probably unnecessarily, given the programme's huge viewing audience) enticed to attend, and by the reeling off of the sponsors' names by the presenter himself. It does from time to time put forward for popular - rather than 'elitist', as in the case of opinion pundits of all sorts - discussions on matters of both human as well as national interest.

Interesting though such discussions may be, they are not what is meant by the term "current affairs". Bondi+ also includes entertainment as well as, now and then, pure theatre, which is not to be confused with investigative journalism, though it could fall under the "features" category. It also often reaches into the field of current affairs. The fact that one party is boycotting it (in the same manner that it boycotts Xarabank) constrains the ability of the presenter to get - and give to the viewer - the most that could be done otherwise. He strives to overcome that constraint through the content and style of his probing of the interviewee. But a limited catchment area of guests to interview remains a handicap, though not one that should be used to puncture the series.

Whatever externally produced programmes PBS does broadcast, the state company would be wrong to continue to veer away from presenting current affairs programmes produced by its own staff. To claim insufficient resources for that glaring gap is not just a terribly lame excuse. It is an insult to the journalists employed by PBS.