Mediatoday's television programme

I refer to your unsigned article (The Sunday Times, July 12) entitled 'Saviour Balzan calls for probe after €88K public hand-out exposed'.

PBS chairman Clare Thake Vassallo is right to assert that "the public should know where public funds go", and the calling for a probe, or demanding that PBS launches an inquiry, has given the wrong impression that the presenter of Reporter may have intended to conceal the amount received by Mediatoday to produce the programme.

The point I take issue with is not the revelation of the amount of public funds received or the way confidential information found its way to a competing newspaper. After all, leaks are par for the journalistic course and the right to know is the cornerstone of journalism.

My prime concern is that your story with its inaccuracies and omissions has not given a complete picture of the facts of the case which should be presented to your readers in order for him/her to appraise the credibility of your report.

Firstly, the contract was awarded to Mediatoday after a call for applications, a procedure not always followed in the public sector. It was not a direct order. Consequently, your definition of a handout is misplaced. The amount agreed to was also decided by PBS. Mediatoday tendered for these funds, which were awarded after negotiations with PBS.

Secondly, the costs to produce the daily programme are far in excess of the weekly amount your newspaper has quoted. More importantly, this is a commercial matter to be decided between the producer and the media house chosen. Surely The Sunday Times has not changed its policy of respecting purely commercial transactions between non-governmental organisations?

The trivial amount you quote reveals a lack of knowledge of production costs on your part, which is surprising since The Times has also produced television programmes for PBS with the support of EU funding.

Thirdly, Mediatoday does not receive money from sponsors. This, to the contrary of other programmes which benefit from public service obligations funds, but which are allowed to retain monies it collects through advertising and sponsorships. In its initial years on PBS, the programme Reporter did not receive any PBS funds, while allowing the company to instead collect advertising revenue. A fairer report would have highlighted this point.

Fourthly, the sum cited should, out of journalistic fairness, also have highlighted that over one year, 193 programmes were produced involving studio costs, filming production, research and secretarial backing for the programme. Failure to list these costs smacks of an envy-driven streak of cherry-picking the revenue stream while omitting real costs, which is traditionally so far removed from The Times' own culture.

The Sunday Times' previous report of June 28 also erroneously states that Mr Balzan has benefited from €157,000 in EU funds. The truth is that Mediatoday has received no funds but has been subcontracted to produce a series whereby our company is committed to spend up to €73,222 from its own funds; of which it will be reimbursed half the amount spent. The €157,000 figure you cite refers to other projects not in the remit of Mediatoday.

So the real point at issue is how far should commercial interests be made known, jeopardised or put at risk in the public interest? For The Sunday Times did not seek to list all programmes benefiting from the PSO funds, which would have had the salutary effect of upgrading local programming and also improve transparency.

It did not list the expenses involved in the production of other programmes, and it did not list how much money in sponsorship and advertising they get to retain. That would surely have given a more objective landscape of the PSO funds and how they are spent and what they produce. This pick-and- choose method of reporting leads me to suspect that The Sunday Times, while appearing to be intent on tarnishing our editor's credibility, is really dead set on directly targeting the commercial interests of a competitor.

If the overwhelming public interest overrides commercial interests, then Dr Thake Vassallo may have rightly or wrongly, knowingly or unintentionally, really opened a Pandora's box - one which hopefully will usher in a welcome increase in transparency in the public sector, which is fully endorsed by our publishing house.

An objective analysis of the facts could well serve as a test case on the desired balance to be achieved between the overriding obligation to expose, and respect for the protection of commercial interests. I hope your story and my reply ushers in an open debate in your paper as it certainly will in Malta Today.

My disappointment, above all, relates to the fact that The Sunday Times' editor did not think fit, in accordance with journalistic tenets, to contact Mr Balzan for a comment. It is all the more serious when one appreciates that our journalist contacted the editor of The Sunday Times for a comment when writing a story only three weeks ago, regarding his interview with the Prime Minister.

Finally, allow me to bring to your readers' attention that, not coincidentally, your comments and story are being carried at a time when our company is negotiating with PBS following a public call for programming.

I hope that my reply gives a fuller picture of the facts, allowing your readers, as the ultimate owners of your newspaper, to draw their own conclusions.

Editor's note: Roger de Giorgio's letter contains a number of inaccuracies.

What is surprising, however, is his mention of "journalistic tenets" in this context.

An unsigned front page story that appeared in Malta Today (November 13, 2005) quoted from a report which revealed payments (derived from public funds) made to Where's Everybody's flagship programmes on PBS. No reaction was sought from the company concerned.

And when Where's Everybody's directors submitted a letter the following week by way of response, Malta Today's editor wrote in reply: "The... report speaks for itself. There are no allegations and no perversions, just simple facts."