PBS editorial board explains decision to halt TV show

The chairman of the PBS editorial board, John Camilleri, explained yesterday why the board had stopped TV presenter Lou Bondì from airing a programme on former minister John Dalli, citing sub judice and conflict of interest.

The Bondìplus programme was to go on air last Tuesday evening.

The producers had earlier yesterday objected to the decision. In a letter to Mr Camilleri released to the press, Mr Bondì said this was the first time such a ban had been imposed in the 15 years he has been working in broadcast journalism on PBS under 11 chairmen.

He said the board had been informed that after Mr Dalli declined to take part, they still intended to go ahead with the programme.

He had not commented about the issue before because he hoped the matter would be resolved "in a gentlemanly manner".

Mr Camilleri replied that Mr Bondì's statement did not change any of the facts on the basis of which the PBS editorial board had reached its decision.

The board still believed that the case was sub judice because Joe Zahra had appealed from the sentence. The board believed so on the basis of legal advice. (Mr Zahra, a private investigator, was last month jailed for two years after a magistrate found him guilty of fabricating a report in which he claimed there had been irregularities in the allocation of a Mater Dei Hospital tender during Mr Dalli's time as Finance Minister.)

Mr Camilleri said that in his opinion, Mr Bondì had a conflict of interest in this case and therefore it was neither prudent nor wise to produce such a programme now, since there had been a court sentence.

Apart from this, Mr Zahra's association with the company Where's Everybody? did not help the journalistic credibility of the programme Bondìplus, he added.

Mr Camilleri said the PBS editorial board felt that the less Mr Bondì treated subjects that in some way involved Mr Zahra, the better it would be.

The editorial board also wanted to draw the public's attention to the fact that Where's Everybody? were PBS-paid contractors and therefore they were subject to the direction of the editorial board, because it was the board and not Where's Everybody? that was responsible for what was broadcast.

Reacting to Mr Camilleri's comments, the TV show producers said he failed to respond to their arguments that there was neither an apparent nor real conflict of interest with the Zahra case. Given that the editorial board is insisting on this point, the producers said they were looking into all the legal remedies available to them.