Scream tests

One of the things that strikes me about One Productions is what appears to be the amount of job satisfaction that people who work there have - even if their stint at the studios may only be as a volunteer.

This issue, this time as a public service, was also dealt with in Super One television's festa programme Minn-Nicca 'l Barra, where one of the many parishioners who spend time constructively was being interviewed.

As is the case with several other NGOs or religious groups, this lady belongs to one that also conducts visits to those who may, save for them, receive no calls from anyone else, for several reasons.

At one point, this lady was saying that, whereas they had hitherto been given a list of patients, in a particular place, hailing from their area, this is no longer being done.

To be frank, whereas I praise this altruism to high heaven, I believe that this is all due to the Data Protection Act; something that was not pointed out by the interviewer, and could have left many viewers with a bitter taste in their mouth.

After all, there are many ways of finding out information in a manner that is, let us say, not so patently official; and anyway, it does not make sense to visit some residents, and not others, when in a particular place.

The L-Isfida auditions have begun; these are being given quite a lot of coverage on Net Television, since the eventual prize will be - ah, but that would be telling. Super One is countering this, to some extent, by issuing invitations for groups of five relatives or friends to compete as a team in a series of trials that we will weed out the, well, weedy.

Over these past few years, we have seen 'reality shows' galore - some of which could even have provided footage for the porn industry. Sometimes, producers try to ring the changes by catching the tantrums of the children of one partner in a second marriage, trying to ruin the Big Day for both their parent and the new spouse.

We have had boot camp for kids - or men - and downright dangerous games played for glory and hard cash.

Reality Television has become an obsession, and not just the title of one particular programme. Ironically, however, so have the programmes that provide 'fake news' proliferated.

Recently, the American Federal Communications Commission sent letters to owners of 77 television stations who in the past have been indicted for broadcasting made-to-measure footage where actors portray reporters.

Since the pay packets for these actors come from specific agencies or pressure groups, and concocted by public relations firms, it was not quite above board to feature them as legitimate news items, since of course questions were bound to be slanted.

There was also the delicate question of whether the stations were actually receiving payola ('donations'?) for broadcasting what amounted to infomercials. Basically, the problem partly stemmed from one extant in media units everywhere - finances.

In Malta, this does not happen - because there is no need for it. We have all seen how the statements issued by John Dalli and Josephine Attard Sultana have been twisted and turned according to which station broadcasts them.

Therefore, the statement "You can't tell any more the difference between what is propaganda and what is news", by FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein holds as good for America as it does for Malta.

After the brouhaha kicked up by the study 'Fake TV News: Widespread and Undisclosed', compiled by the Centre for Media and Democracy (the Wisconsin-based non-profit organisation that monitors the public relations industry), the upshot is that television stations have been asked to comply, failing which they would have knowingly violated the rules for which fines or license revocation could be the penalty they would have to pay.

The Maltese equivalent, I take it, would be a stern letter from the Broadcasting Authority to station mangers to ask A-B-C-D to tone it down and realise that some of us have more than two brain cells to rub together.

This means, practically, that all those whose voluntary or otherwise job includes going over the day's events with a fine toothcomb will hopefully become redundant.

An oriental echo of the Conference for Quality Children's Television held recently in Malta comes from across the oceans, China to be exact.

The Simpsons, Pokemon and Mickey Mouse have already been barred from what are called in that nation the 'Golden Hours' of 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., and Teletubbies appear to be set to follow suit.

However, it has been indicated that this is not a form of censorship, but rather an effort to support the local animation industry, which produces such fare as The Monkey King. The move has been criticised in the papers as "the wrong way to improve programming for Chinese children", who patently preferred the foreign products, which obviously include the flood that emanates from Japan.

One newspaper, the Southern Metropolis News, argued that this was a short-sighted policy that would "not solve the fundamental problems in China's cartoon industry".

As the song by Katie Melua goes, There are 9,000,000 Bicycles in Beijing - and there are 250 million children in China and the chances are that many of these (80 per cent according to one study) would like to see more than traditional stories brought to the screen.

It goes without saying that western critics have simply assumed that this is merely another facet of the campaign by President Hu Jintao's government to clamp down on the influx of pop (read foreign) culture, encompassing films, magazines, books, Websites and other means of communication.

Measures pertaining to television include a watershed hour for horror films, a dress code and a restriction on the number of English words that may be used in transmissions.

Ah - this last one is a sentiment with which I thoroughly agree, and which ought to be ordained locally too. Especially when the programme is supposed to be in Maltese.

Silly Advert of the Week Award goes to Castellino wine. When it is ostensibly drunk in zero gravity, it becomes globules because it's supposed to be in a vacuum... but the plate of spaghetti in front of the astronauts remains intact; ought the strands not to have been snaking about, with the sauce congealing into gobbets? Is this not 'faking it' too?