Dr Emy Bezzina must be ecstatic at the public limelight he is being bathed in. Probably he thinks himself as being the darling of myriad television and radio producers who fall over their feet rushing to invite him to their programmes.
Is he conscious of the fact that what draws them to him is not admiration but cynicism? They just want to use him as a prop, believing that, at his expense, they can increase their ratings.
This situation is ridiculously pathetic. Producers who live on ratings more than they live on oxygen are pushing our broadcasting system towards the burlesque and the ridiculous. Truth be told, this is not just a Maltese phenomenon. Had that been so, they could at least claim the merit of being original. They are not original but third or fourth generation copies.
The race towards the bottom is an American creation which considers the measure of the ‘good’ or the ‘bad’ in TV solely from the financial return on investment.
All attempts are made to attract an audience to a programme to then sell it to advertisers, in turn enabling owners to line their pockets with money. The logic is very simple: find what attracts audiences, as these entice adverts which bring in money, which is the be-all and end-all of everything in a capitalist mentality.
This mentality enriches the owners and bloats producers’ egos. But there is a price to be paid by society at large. Public discourse is trivialised, personal dramas are sensationalised and politics is reduced to a vaudeville act.
People’s attention span is shrivelled and serious debate becomes an anathema as it is wrongly considered to be guilty of the mothers of all evils: boredom. Everything is then reduced to entertainment of the lowest denominator.
The money-grabbing or ego-bloated producers try to rationalise their acts by sublimating them. They take out the democracy card: all opinions are equally valid and should thus be glorified on the media. This is pure rubbish.
While everyone is entitled to an opinion, it should be clear to all and sundry that the validity of an opinion is based on one’s knowledge of the issue. This can be the result of either direct experience or research.
A serious producer would not push forward self-opinionated dilettantes at the expense of people who really know. Quite naturally, producers imbued with the ratings-are-god mentality do the exact opposite. The more stupid one’s ideas are, the more he/she who utters them is welcome as he/she is considered to be ‘good’ television and radio.
Ego-bloated producers try to rationalise their acts... They take out the democracy card: all opinions are equally valid and should thus be glorified on the media. This is pure rubbish
What is happening on our radio and TV channels is similar to what used to happen during the Middle Ages or the Renaissance. Court or itinerant jesters were part of the furniture. There is a difference though; back then professional jesters were engaged as jesters while today, other professionals play the part of jesters.
Let us return to the Bezzina case. Producers try to kid themselves by saying this is an issue of freedom of expression. It is nothing of the sort.
The case of Raif Badawi the Saudi blogger, who was condemned to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes for criticising Saudi Arabia’s powerful clerics is a case of freedom of expression. The predicament of Zulkiflee Anwar Ulhaque, the famous Malaysian cartoonist, who is facing a possible 43-year prison sentence for cartoons he draws under the name Zunar, is a case of freedom of expression. Bezzina is not.
Bezzina is not being invited on the media because he is pushing some controversial opinion that challenges received wisdom or the democratic basis of our political system. Had that been the case we could then discuss the interesting argument of whether the propagation of anti-democratic ideas should be allowed in a democratic country even though they undermine it.
Neither is it an issue of the dissemination of positions, which some find offending. Had that been the case we could have had an intelligent discussion about what could be legitimately considered offensive but permissible by law.
The Broadcasting Authority will be discussing Bezzina not because he is spreading ideas but because he is propagating vulgarity. He is being investigated because his manner of speaking on television is vulgar.
The BA should not waste much time on Bezzina as he is not the problem. Those TV and radio producers who act as if they were the impresarios for some latter-day court or itinerant jester are the problem.
They invite Bezzina not because they respect him or give a hoot about freedom of expression but because they believe that someone who can rant and rave on TV will attract audiences who love to laugh at such theatrics.
TV producers try to quieten their conscience by saying they are responding to a popular need. There is also a popular demand for junk food. But those who care about people go out of their way to persuade them that junk food is bad for their health. On the other hand, those who care about making money or enhancing their popularity jump on the junk food bandwagon.
Producers should remember that as junk food drives out good food, junk treatment of serious subjects drives out healthy discussions. And thus no citizen is served.
• I was shocked at how many in the local media were taken in by the staged antics of Anthony Busuttil and his lawyers. Busuttil’s young son was paraded in front of photographers and TV cameras. His privacy was obscenely invaded. His future unnecessarily prejudiced. His vulnerably exploited.
Should it not be obvious that the media should not publish the face of such a young boy, particularly when he is in the middle of a struggle between his father and his mother? This to say nothing of the fact that the media acted as a mere tape recorder and transmitter of a particular version without any attempt to delve into the case.
The BA should be more concerned with what is happening to this defenceless little child than with Bezzina playing the jester on Smash TV.
joseph.borg@um.edu.mt