Natalino Fenech, editor and head of news, Public Broadcasting Services, Guardamangia
Plenty of interesting local news items on TVM
Judging by the contents of his letter, TV Station Running Out Of Local News Items (January 8), it seems that Matthew Borg had not seen the news on TVM on January 4. He said there were only three locally-related items in that bulletin while the rest was about what is happening in Gaza and Barack Obama.
The TVM 8 p.m. news on the day had a feature about Gaza, in which we obtained comments from the ambassadors of Israel and the Palestinian Authority. But none about Barack Obama, about whom we had news items when we felt these were of interest to our viewers.
We also had stories about the hold-up at Marsascala, and local features about developments in the second-hand car market and Maltese chapels, apart from a human interest foreign story about child slavery.
There was no other local news on the day,that is why our newsroom strove to get its own stories, as we do every day.
The situation in Gaza merited top of the list of the news on the day. Incidentally, The Times on the following day also started with the Gaza issue on the front page and covered some of the other stories covered by TVM.
Issues such as illegal immigration, hunting, utility bills, weather, property, pollution etc., which were mentioned by Mr Borg, have all featured in recent bulletins, some before Sunday and some after.
Statistics over the past four months show that TVM news bulletins had less politics and more off-diary stories. Viewers are appreciating this as the 8 p.m. news bulletin has doubled its audiences and latest surveys have shown it is seen by up to 121,000 a day.
I invite Mr Borg to start tuning in to TVM news more regularly and he will be pleasantly surprised that TVM is a really impartial station that tackles news in a way a national TV station should.
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Dr. John Zammit
Jan 12th 2009, 14:59
I support Mr. Mathew Borg and Dr. Natalino Fenech knows what I have written to him already and to the Chief Executive of the Malta Broadcasting Authorty Dr. Kevin Aquilina. For me TVM news is rubbish and I told him that TVM is a tv in Maltese "TAL-HABBA GOZZ". We organize a political conference and had Mr. Hans-Jorgan Gotsche sent by Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen of Denmark and reveals how Denmark is not going to accept burden sharing of illegal immigrants and they don't even know about the patrols taking place in the Mediterranean and also announced that I was going to be the candidate for the European Parliament election and for Natalino it was of no news value whilst the lot of rubbish to fill the time of the TVM news bulettin is of news value!?! - Dr. John Zammit - Leader Alleanza Liberali www.malta-liberals.org
Ramon Casha
Jan 12th 2009, 10:36
Might I point out to TVM and all local TV stations and other media, that news can be interesting even if there is no minister or parliamentary secretary using it as a photo op?
Judging by many news broadcasts one gets the impression that a small number of MPs singlehandedly did everything that happens - when in most cases they were not involved anywhere except at the press conference.