Wheres everybody else?

I have one enduring image of Lou Bondi. It’s of him participating in a crazy knees-up to the tune of Los Rios’ Macarena on the stage after the Nationalist Party’s last meeting in the ill-fated 1996 election campaign. He’s come a long way since then. His current affairs programme has gone through various name changes but is now Bondiplus, either because it’s new or improved or simply to avoid the hassle of changing the title every time a Bondi sidekick leaves the show.

The programme’s logo is now ‘Programmes People Watch’ instead of the more taxing ‘Ġurnaliżmu Fuq Kollox’ and it has gone from strength to strength, if you think of strength in terms of advertising revenue and – as Bondi keeps reminding us – of audience numbers.

Now Bondiplus has another thing going for it. It has landed itself, for the time being at least, the spot of the only current affairs programme being aired on TVM (besides the other Where’s Everybody programme, Xarabank, of course).

Some of you may have been caught up in Paul Borg Olivier’s VAT mishaps, or the way Tonio Fenech gave away his home help’s irregular tax situation, to be up to speed with how this came about and how Reno Bugeja’s Dissett fails to feature on the TVM winter schedule.

This is how it happened. For some reason, the PBS Board of directors has decided that current affairs programmes should only be aired on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Presumably, viewers needed Tuesdays, Thursdays and the weekends as periods of respite from the weighty topics discussed previously.

With Bondiplus and Xarabank being practically entrenched in the Monday and Friday slots, the one remaining slot was Wednesday night. That coincides with most Uefa Champions’ League games, and no matter how well-researched or excellently-presented a current affairs programme is, it’s going to be no match for the football.

Quite understandably Bugeja passed this up. Who would want to be presenting a programme to a non-existent audience, or one made up of a handful of political anoraks? He was then offered a Saturday night slot, an offer which was withdrawn when the producers of the programme that was about to lose the Saturday spot objected.

Unless the issue is resolved, the result is that Bondiplus and Xarabank are the only current affairs discussion programmes being shown on the national television station. Why should it matter? Is it of any significance that effective media power is concentrated in the hands of one company?

I’d say it does, and how. In today’s world, power lies in the hands of those who control the media. They are the ones who get to choose which news is relayed to the masses and in what manner. They can decide who gets favourable coverage and who gets none at all.

They can frame a discussion and edit news selectively. They can invite incompetent and hopelessly compromised ‘experts’ to bolster the point of view they are pushing. And they can decide who has the most visibility and who has the last word on any given argument.

It’s true that the internet is eroding the supremacy of television in this respect, but it is slow going and for now, television still reigns. So granting Where’s Everybody effective exclusivity for current affairs programme on the national television station is entrusting its directors with considerable power – the power to mould public opinion.

Then there’s the question of political bias. Bondi’s outings on the stage have been limited to some ghastly guitaring to Beatles’ songs and a toe-curlingly embarrassing night presenting the contest for the Malta Song for Europe. Other than that he hasn’t been directly on the political stage.

Still, he is widely believed to be – how shall we put it politely – sweet on the Nationalist Party. Last April, the Broadcasting Authority fined an edition of Bondiplus for breaking political impartiality rules. The programme in question was about the PN government’s activity in the two years of the legislature.

As far as I can remember it consisted of a set of features about completed government projects, very much in the style of the Mao propaganda posters proclaiming the greatness of the great Helmsman and his government. The guest on the programme was Deputy Prime Minister Tonio Borg, and though Bondi claimed he subjected him to some hard-hitting questions, Borg looked like he was receiving a feather massage.

Moreover, there is a perception that Bondi reserves tough questions for non-Nationalist guests while all-sorts of evasive replies from Nationalists are accepted with a docile, little smile.

As for that other so-called current affairs discussion programme, Xarabank, it manages to combine over-simplified, dumbed-down discussions with a strong showbiz element. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, dry discussions won’t exactly set the house on fire. But the fact that it is put up by a company which also carries out lucrative public relations work for the Nationalist government, poses questions about its bias.

The producers may argue that this is already well-known and it has not stopped people from watching it. This may be the case, but it does not make it a good programme in terms of an intelligent or fair discussion.

The fact that there is no alternative programme on the national television station also helps it maintain its position.

The monopolisation of the national television station by Where’s Everybody raises eyebrows about the political neutrality of the station, which was known as ‘Dardir Malta’ in the 1980s because of its overtly pro-Labour bias.

Is TVM to become a copy of NET TV, with key programmes taken over by Nationalist supporters to the exclusion of people or companies with other views? It certainly looks like it, and perhaps in this context, it would be appropriate to quote Primo Levi, who said, “Every age has its Facism”. He went on to warn, “one can reach such a condition in many ways, not necessarily by means of terror and police intimidation. But also by withholding or manipulating information, by polluting the judicial system and by paralysing the school system.”

At least Where’s Everybody isn’t running the schools yet.

cl.bon@nextgen.net.mt