Fische and chips

Lillian Hellman, the American writer, put it in a nutshell when she said: "I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashion; words that agree perfectly with my motto 'do as you would be done by'." I wish our media personalities would learn to be more humane.

Last week I was reading the rules and regulations of the Broadcasting Authority as they pertain to news bulletin broadcasts, and I wondered whether they still applied to Malta, or at least to the news bulletins I happen to listen to or watch...

What is it with our news A, B, C, D? A foreigner mauls his pregnant girlfriend hard enough to make her miscarry - and her name, which is usual enough to be of note, is broadcast to the four winds. A man threatens to kill his wife, among other things, and "...names are not being published to protect the identity of the victims". Why the two weights and two measures? This was only a random example of unfairness, for in truth this attitude has become par for the course.

Once I had formulated a theory that news bulletins for political stations are compiled by someone who has a fine toothcomb that tests items for political worthiness - whereas other stations simply write the names of items, place them in a tombola casket, and randomly select the first few to be picked.

Things do not appear to have changed much. Even when thinly veiled by a smidgeon of praise, because certain facts are undeniable, the way it is rendered in Malta, even a news item about Heaven could leave us with a bitter taste ("...the weather was balmy but the night I arrived they were fresh out of cappuccino...").

Over in America, lawmakers have introduced a bill aimed at protecting children from indecent television programmes by forcing cable and satellite providers to offer a modified form of a la carte programming to protect children from mature content.

Unfortunately, this sterling work is being undone by instances, such as the latest ruckus in CBS affiliate Channel 19 KYTX, which has hired babe Lauren Jones, in an unscripted Fox series said to be "a comedy/reality hybrid" called Anchorwoman, scheduled to premiere on August 21.

Here, the Broadcasting Authority has smaller fish to fry. They do not come down like a tonne of bricks on those who do not respect human dignity and, with the excuse (not reason) that they are newshounds worthy of their pedigree, trample on human dignity.

Rather, they chase WE? for advertising what everyone knew anyway (that they were selling tickets for Olivia Lewis's concert) and EMH Productions for filming another public place and, "giving the impression" that it was already operating when, in fact, it is not - something that we also know anyway, having been told it ad nauseam, on One Radio and One Television.

I wonder why nobody kicked up a brouhaha when filming was carried out at the Lower Barrakka, at St Paul's Bay Primary School, the Higher Secondary and the MIA. Are these not public places too?

Are these cases where it is essential for justice to be seen being done?

I note with pleasure that the second edition of the Malta International TV Song Festival has been launched.

The first phase, which will have 48 songs, will begin on Sunday, October 7, on One Television between 5.45 and 6.40 p.m. Regulations stipulate that songwriters can submit any number of songs, but they would not be able to compete with more than two songs beyond the semi-final phase.

The finals will be held on December 7 and 8 at the Catholic Institute, Floriana. The voting system has it that ten judges will cast their votes, but a ballot will randomly select seven of them; and it will be the votes of these that will have a bearing, along with televoting, counting as one unit, on who will win.

I wish that a festival of this type would eventually replace the huffing and puffing that goes on every year in preparation for sending just one entry to the Eurovision Sing Contest. Let's face it; our insular mentality would probably restrain us from voting for a transsexual, a hard rock band, a pair of lesbians, or any other type of human that cannot be fitted into a conservative nice, however much we would flock to their gigs in real life.

So it might even do our cultural tourism good if we were to organise an International Song Contest on a national scale... and with tongues firmly in our cheeks, send invitations to all Mediterranean shore countries, as well as our EU brethren. The RSVPs would probably yield enough contestants.

But I am not about to organise a petition to this end.

Speaking of which - the person who, in connection with what I wrote last week, chided that "even the people who are complaining about the rape of Ramla l-Hamra are raising their petition on the Internet, rather than going to City Gate", might have to retract this comment.

Just for the record, I had suggested that he might have gone and braved (both) types of elements at City Gate with his petition to oust 'someone' from 'somewhere'.

The long-awaited summer schedules for TVM (and Radju Malta) have been finalised. I look forward to watching my old-time favourite Absolutely Fabulous on Saturdays at 9.30 p.m. - and no doubt, Ray Calleja's thousands of fans will be forgoing their Sunday Night on the Town since, he's back with Il-Kotra (10.30 p.m.).

Both the aforementioned television programmes are totally against the praxis at Magic, where More Music Less Talk reigns supreme - as indicated by the latest Media Warehouse survey of 3,000 people.

Truth to tell, I no longer slot as many cassette tapes as I used to into my radios because of the singing-with-the-stars and inane chatterbox habits of some disc jockeys, who shall be nameless. With me is the impressive audience share of 8.2% determined in April, literally doubled from February's 4.1%.

Phrase of the week is "joqtluhom hajjin"... probably translatable as "in cold blood".