A paranoid optimist on PBS reform

Imagine a panel of judges was set up to evaluate the medical profession in Malta. The panel probes, studies and ruminates and returns a report that evaluates bedside manner, operation equipment and techniques used, quality and quantity of prescriptions... and then names the best practitioners in each field. But the panel decides to go beyond that.

It also makes various observations about the nature of medicine, like: Hospitals should realise that it is not enough to place a well-known doctor before the patient - the combined elements of diagnosis, bedside manner, medical knowledge and ability are all important in the process of healing.

Or: Complications during operations should not be allowed to affect quality of treatment. Doctors/medical administrators should always seek to challenge themselves to improve on their best treatment.

Whatever we make of the panel's evaluation, we would surely think that no profession deserves to be addressed in such an offensively patronising tone. Hang on, none?

For the broadcasting profession is treated just like that (I mean it) in the adjudicating panel's report on the Broadcasting Authority's Programme Awards for the 2002/3 - it is appended to the BA's annual report and you should soon be able to read it for yourself on the BA's website.

In the light of your own experience as TV viewers and radio listeners, some of you might decide that the wise avuncular tone is justified. I do not; but I did serve for two years on a similar judging panel and my evaluations of the state of the various broadcasting categories were close to that of the BA's panel. Production generally showed a noticeable lack of mastery of the "language" of the medium and genre.

The point is to remind you of the general situation into which the new PBS editorial board has entered. There are the financial constraints. There is the political straitjacket - the BA's panel did not find a single PBS programme that deserved to be a finalist in the investigative journalism category, even though, to add insult to injury, Net and Super One did get one finalist each.

And there is the skills deficit - spread across the profession. The BA's panel suggests it is this deficit, rather than the political straitjacket, that hampers the current affairs/discussion category. The two finalists that represented PBS in this category were outsourced, produced by Where's Everybody?

So are the PBS reforms going to improve the station and professionalise its journalists? Take your pick from four attitudes.

The chairman of the BA is optimistic. In his introduction to the BA's annual report, he endorses the idea of an independent editorial board that determines the agenda of current affairs, a board guided by a Code of Public Conduct. He does not explicitly say whether he considers the actual set-up to fulfil his criteria of "transparency and accountability" but, if he adds nothing else soon, we can take that as an endorsement.

The mood I am picking up from the PBS side is one of optimism of the will and pessimism of the intellect when contemplating the things that need to be done.

The editorial board is coming in during a complex period. There are the European Parliament elections, which instantly makes their hot seat hotter. There are major changes being made to the staff of PBS newsroom, which might make things tricky to administer during the transition period - especially if this coincides with the last part of the election period. Any number of things could go wrong - not because of the institutional changes themselves but because of its timing, but the changes might get blamed.

The Malta Labour Party takes a third attitude: paranoia. Two days ago Evarist Bartolo wrote that there is nothing to guarantee the accountability of the editorial board. More, the reforms "as they have been presented so far reinforce the Nationalist Party's stranglehold on PBS..."

In fact, nothing that I can see about the new set-up decisively makes Mr Bartolo's paranoia seem unfounded. The end-result - the quality of programming - would, but we must wait for that. At this stage, Minister Austin Gatt is adamant that the editorial board will be independent of him; however, the board can in principle be changed by a minister.

The only safeguard is public reaction if board members are changed too often or for reasons that are too blatantly partisan. But in the 1970s, public reaction did not prevent frequent changes of the Police Commissioner, or the ensuing cost to the reputation of the Police Force.

I do not have a solution. I do not think that a BBC-style solution - making PBS publicly but not state-owned - would work in the current environment of mistrust.

So my own attitude (yes, healthy as always) is one of paranoid optimism. The backbone and experience of the current members of the editorial board make me optimistic that they will leave PBS much better than they found it. But a little paranoia will keep me watchful about the effect of the entire PBS reform.

ranierfsadni@europe.com