Lax on news, lax on dress

A recent DOI directive regarding the required dress code at press briefings, which some journalists took exception to, is a commendable step in re-establishing the "ownership" of things public and the respect due them as well as our country's chief executive.

This brings to mind that not for the first time I have written to TVM (and other stations) about the low-cut dresses of some of the people they put on screen for various programmes.

The reply is, in not so many words, to do with keeping up to date on current fashion. Yet their news bulletins, to mention one facet, are not always current and at times rather scant.

They certainly do not keep up with the information explosion and the wealth of news available on more modern media such as the internet, which at the push of a button at any time of day and night, give the latest and not at set predetermined times with hardly ever any "breaking news" innovation.

Take the latest heist at Arkadia, Gozo - shop and street gossip on this island was far more detailed than the starched up last English news bulletin on the date (September 9). While the TVM bulletin newsman parroted that the stolen amount was not yet known, at one or two grocers I usually shop at the presumed amount mentioned as well as the time of the crime, the fact that the robbers were masked, the takings were substantial as they involved the arcade shops' takings over the long weekend. At the time police barriers were still around the place awaiting the conclusion of whatever clue gathering was taking place etc. Any private sleuth would have his/her work cut out for him. Naturally, English language TVM viewers were sold short on this and other occasions.

Short on hem lines, short on facts.