Sant and Springer

Alfred Sant's flair for flinging dirt at anything, even in the absence of any proof, delighted Maltese audiences again last Sunday. This time, writing in The Sunday Times, he called Xarabank Malta's Jerry Springer show.

The Jerry Springer Show is basically an unethical programme which centres around the guests who often reveal their most intimate secrets to their relatives, mothers, husbands or wives. Through them, a spectacle is created.

To suggest that the guests on Xarabank are carrying out the same function is nothing short of an insult to these same guests. Surely, Dr Sant would think again before comparing Dr George Vella, Leo Brincat, Archbishop Joseph Mercieca, Tony Zarb, Mgr Victor Grech and the Prime Minister to the guests on the Jerry Springer Show?

Surely Dr Sant would think again before suggesting that Evarist Bartolo - who still holds the record as Xarabank's most frequent guest - is Jerry Springer material?

Xarabank from Ground Zero in America - only days after the tragedy; Xarabank from Palestine mid-war; Xarabank on health and safety at the place of work; Xarabank on domestic violence... and many more form a list of programmes that bear absolutely no resemblance to the Jerry Springer Show. How can the Leader of the Opposition insult events and subjects like these by calling them Jerry Springer material?

Dr Sant's allegations also constitute an insult to the thousands of viewers who have continued to make Xarabank the most popular programme in Malta. Out of all the Maltese people who opt to watch any television on Fridays, 85 per cent choose to watch Xarabank, even in the face of increasing local and international competition - both from cable and satellite TV.

Is it possible that, year after year, the vast majority of the Maltese chose "Malta's Jerrry Springer Show" as their favourite programme? Is this the faith Dr Sant has in the Maltese people? May I remind him that the thousands who watch Xarabank are the same people who, he is claiming, will choose him as our next Prime Minister.

The Broadcasting Authority itself awarded Xarabank the prize for Malta's best discussion programme - twice. In five years Xarabank was never found guilty of political bias. The MLP itself never protested that such a bias existed. Right after the Labour Party ordered the mayor of Birzebbuga not to attend a Xarabank programme discussing landfills - a programme which had been requested by the mayor himself! - the mayor issued a public statement saying "Peppi Azzopardi has no hidden agenda. He treated us professionally. In no way was Peppi Azzopardi trying to please the Nationalist government."

The truth is that Dr Sant needs to discredit Xarabank. He knows full well that Xarabank is an investigative journalism programme. Dr Sant knows that, should he ever agree to appear on the programme, he would have to answer the questions we pose to everyone. As EU Commissioner Gunter Verheugen himself - a recent guest on Xarabank - told journalists before leaving Malta, he had not been in such a hot seat for years!

But clearly Dr Sant has little admiration for investigative journalism or for freedom of expression. Dr Sant has little admiration for any kind of journalism that may question the basis of his policies. So he tries to discredit such journalism by calling Xarabank the "Jerry Springer Show ta' Malta".

If, as Dr Sant says, Xarabank really is Malta's Jerry Springer Show, then why would Jimmy Magro (as he himself publicly admitted) have wanted to buy Xarabank as a discussion programme lock, stock and barrel to be aired on Super One TV?

Why would the MLP choose Xarabank as the programme in which to air its political spots on the partnership?

But what intrigues me most is not this contradition. Nor is the fact that Dr Sant has managed to insult Xarabank's guests, events, subjects, viewers and regulators. The mystery which intrigues me most is how Dr Sant can evaluate and judge Xarabank at all when he has publicly stated that he does not watch TV. Does Dr Sant have time to watch the Jerry Springer Show?