Tort and tweet

From the lady who coined the word ‘refudiate’, who thinks Africa is a country, and who assumes an Australian can commit treason against America, comes even more spiel:

“I want to help clean up the state that is so sorry today of journalism (sic). And I have a communications degree. I studied journalism, who, what, where, when, and why of reporting... So a journalist, a reporter who is so biased and will, no doubt, spin and gin up whatever it is that I have to say to create controversy, I swear to you, I will not my waste my time with her. Or him.”

Sarah Palin would find her work cut out for her here if she worked as a media consultant, especially since her sentence construction is uncannily Maltese rather than American.

Our fine-feathered journalists appear to have difficulties with language and logic.

This week it appears to have been a bad week for plurals, with the descriptive ‘imkisser’ coming into its own and with ‘martelli’ and ‘ġmula’, both, alas, on the national broadcaster.

The hat-trick of mistakes was made up for by a crime that was committed ‘għad-dawl tax-xemx’. And then, ironically, we get a seven-year-old Maltese child using the words ‘arrogant’, ‘participate’, ‘illustrate’ and ‘theme’ in a written work. The mind boggles.

It’s a toss-up, whether it’s Eileen Montesin’s characters, under whichever name they appear, or those in All My Children, who have appeared in the highest number of episodes on television.

Just for fun, I was watching some Abhishekam episodes, without subtitles, in Telugu (a Dravidian language spoken in central India). I found that nonetheless, I could follow the plot quite well. There were lots and lots of actors (mostly beautiful Indian women in saris with miles of hair between them, and moustached men, some of whom wore western clothes).

There were photographs of illicit meetings, starry nights, attempts at humour, girl talk, male bonding sessions, family reunions, a matriarch, shops, interior decorators’ nightmares, and so on.

This, according to director Dasari Narayana Rao, is what makes television much better than cinema. In an interview (in English) he said that “... about 200 families make a living on a single serial... I am sure Abhishekam will complete 1,000 episodes.”

It could be mere coincidence that television service providers Go and Melita both chose to include Living TV and Comedy Central in packages offered to clients, without having had the rights to do so.

MP David Agius, undoubtedly voicing the thoughts of thousands of others, did not mince his words when he accused both companies of taking us for a ride, especially when one considers the rigmarole that caused football aficionados to jump through hoops and subscribe to both providers if they wanted to watch English, Italian and other European football matches.

Go and Melita have euphemistically reiterated that they had been forced to discontinue the transmissions of the aforementioned stations because of rights issues.

Ironically, since both companies are internet service providers too, they seem to be forgetting that this is not the time when the winged ankles of Hermes made him a messenger. News today travels faster than that.

The truth is out there – and there will be no redress for the fleecing of subscribers, unless someone takes it in hand to present a Class Act to the Consumer Claims Tribunal. End of story.

Or is it?

It used to be said that these things happened only when there was a monopoly, but the liberalisation of the market, in this instance at least, has not changed things. Nobody goes into business to make a loss.

Nobody can, as yet, put a finger upon which channels, if any, are being relayed illegally. No statistics are available about how many people chose packages from Go and Melita specifically because of the two channels that have now been pulled.

The Malta Communications Authority indicated that operators who decide to change any terms or conditions of service must notify subscribers 30 days before the change-over, giving clients the option to pull out of the contract during this period without laying themselves open to legal action.

Yet because “... the change was not instigated by the service providers themselves” this proviso does not apply. However, this excuse does not hold water, because the providers were in effect selling something that was not theirs to sell. The alacrity with which they discontinued relaying the stations, rather than taking the parent companies to court, might demonstrate that they knew not everything was quite above board.

Christmas time is supposed to be a season of peace and serenity. But, of course, Jeremy Clarkson had to insult people to liven things up. First, he and his team insulted Muslims by dressing up in burkas (with hairy arms showing) as they, supposedly, followed the path taken by the Magi across the desert.

Yet this was not enough, for in another ‘seasonal episode’, the babe in the manger was none other than a miniature Stig.

It is interesting to note that both episodes elicited complaints, the tone of which differed according to the opinions of those making them.

Hot on the heels of the news that Elton John and David Furnish had adopted a child, whom they have named Levon (since he was born on Christmas Day), comes the news that Coronation Street will be having its first gay wedding between Sean Tully and male midwife Marcus Dent.

This is said to have been the idea of producer Phil Collinson, who sees Coronation Street as an “amazing platform” from which to highlight gay issues. Nobody can accuse Collinson of being gender-biased – Sophie Webster and Sian Powers are two characters in a lesbian relationship.

television@timesofmalta.com