I do not understand the way Labour Party spokesmen are handling the public broadcasting situation as operated by PBS and the Broadcasting Authority, and in particular the focus on Lou Bondi and Peppi Azzopardi. The issue turns on bias, objectivity, political allegiance, agenda setting, alienation, and personalities.
In Malta everybody has a political opinion. In Lou Bondi and Peppi Azzopardi’s case, far better that it is externalised- Lino Spiteri
Azzopardi and Bondi first. For years they have successfully submitted proposals to PBS to produce current affairs programmes to be carried on its television channel, part of the state sector. Azzopardi presents Xarabank. It is a populist programme through which the presenter essentially reaches out over the panel’s head to the studio audience, and through them, the people.
That is where everybody is. And the people vote for the programme in large thousands. It’s not at all my cup of tea. I hate the bedlam, the way the audience not infrequently shouts and yells and growls and hisses. But then not infrequently too discussion panels do that, on all the TV stations. The people at large lap it up.
Bondi presents another long-running programme, now increased to two (shorter) slots per week. It is not as popular as Xarabank, but it has a substantial following. The Labour Party is attacking both presenters’ on two counts.
One is their political allegiance. They do not hide the fact they vote Nationalist. Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando MP revealed that Peppi coached him how “to tell the truth” (sic) over his Mistra shenanigans on the eve of the 2008 general election. Bondi recently said in a relaxed late evening programme where he was, for a change, being interviewed that PL leader Joseph Muscat still has to convince him to vote Labour.
I do not see anything new or earth shaking in these developments, other than for the recent emergence of a blog by Bondi, a fad very popular among presenters overseas. I do not like the blog because, at times, it targets individuals – Labour figures – rather than their views.
However, I feel these factors are politically relevant only to any extent they translate into bias in the Bondi and Azzopardi programmes on TVM. Should they do that, the Broadcasting Authority should intervene as with any other contravention, even if the PL or anybody else did not protest.
The BA is covered by rusty legal provisions. It has not made them better when effectively declaring that it responds to them only close to election time. Malta is in election mode all the time.
The BA ought to be on the lookout without season, as should PBS. That is reasonable fodder for the Labour Party. But not the fact of presenters’ political convictions. In Malta everybody has a political opinion. In presenters’ case, far better that it is externalised in their private, off-PBS programmes life. They should be focused upon, and when justified, criticised for their PBS activities.
Presenters, like to a lesser extent columnists, help shape the public agenda. They do so by what they tackle – and also what they might deliberately ignore. Do Bondi and Azzopardi present a balanced broad spectrum of subject-matters, panel participants, and (Xarabank) studio audience members?
Those are the criteria by which they – and other presenters on PBS stations (present and future) should be appraised. Otherwise, the Labour Party may be missing an opportunity and muddling the issue. The opportunity is to ensure that Labour protagonists who appear on these (and other) programmes have the ability to deliver their points in a manner that penetrates and convinces the uncommitted. That is the essence.
Presenters who show obvious bias simply anger those who oppose their political views and fail to persuade the uncommitted. They do not thereby help the side they support.
Furthermore, participants who focus on actual or perceived presenters’ bias fall over their own feet. Even should presenters become or seem to bulk too large, political participants should use their time to pitch for the wider audience, and not to reply to or throw accusations at the presenter.
That said, in current affairs programmes the interviewer cannot meekly mouth questions. Interviewers have to be sharp and, at times, argumentative to raise the programme and bring out the best – or the worst – in their interviewees. Watch Hard Talk on BBC, among other programmes.
Why then is the PL muddling the issue, as I see it? Because its second criticism of the Bondi/Azzopardi programmes is that they, particularly Xarabank, alienate the people from the country’s immediate problems. The charge is too broad, for if the presenters do not produce a range of interesting problems, audience will shrink. Nobody can really alienate for too long.
By focusing so fiercely on Bondi and Azzopardi as coming across over TVM the PL is actually alienating people from other far more politically important issues without tackling the constant need for penetration with its ideas and style. It is being hoist by its own petard.
Two other points – both on the ridiculous. It is foolish of anyone to attack Bondi because he said, when being interviewed, that he is an atheist. That is his personal affair. Yes, it is strange that atheist-Bondi confirmed an oath in court by kissing the Crucifix. But any implication is not political.
And it is foolish for PBS – a station belonging to and financed by all the people – to engage the Labour Party in a political slanging match, to the extent that it charged it that its protests were motivated by consideration of advertising revenue earned by the party’s own TV station. Such a style of argumentation does not become a public station. PBS had better take a critical look at itself, in particular at its news bulletins.
They are once more, as in the Labour 1970s and 1980s, and the Nationalist 1990s and first years of the new century, too often a biased notice board of government activities and news-less reports of dreary political discourse. PBS needs public silence and private self-criticism to find proper focus.