I will from time to time comment on some media aspect or other of the campaign.
Perhaps a couple of paragraphs on the media use being made by one of the revelations of the campaign: Konrad Mizzi.
He has developed a very particular style. Ask him whatever you want and he will thank you and then adds, inwiegbek, inwiegbek fuq kollox. Then he goes about his spiel, saying what he wants about what he wants, hardly addressing any tough point the journalist made, let alone answering it.
Most journalists buy that. They generally behave like glorified tape recorders and sometimes upgrade themselves into the status of time keepers.
Some do not.
Norman Vella of TVHemm is one of them.
Konrad Mizzi has been saying ad nauseam that ten years' agreements which include the freezing of the price of gas for ten years and a guaranteed stable price are a matter of course. This is one of the legs on which the plan of the PL stands or falls.
Norman Vella asked Konrad Mizzi to give him examples. Mizzi said that there is no problem. He said he was more than happy to oblige.
But he did not deliver. It seems that promises about deadlines mean nothing to him.
Norman Vella, during Xarabank reminded Konrad Mizzi of his promise. True to form Mizzi was not perplexed. "By Monday you will have all the links."
Monday comes, and ...... You guessed correctly. Konrad Mizzi sent nothing! Who said that commitments are there to be respected and deadlines are there to be met on time?
Norman Vella asked again when Mizzi was there. Mizzi was once more calm and reassuring. He produced a CD with the information. But the information given had nothing to do with the information promised. This was a CD with an interview broadcast on One TV.
Norman Vella pointed this out but Mizzi kept on blabbing about what he felt comfortable blabbing about.
You see, Mizzi promises one thing and delivers something completely different. This is no good news to the other promises and deliverables which Konrad Mizzi is talking about.
Had we been living in a normal country a self-respecting journalist would not have let Mizzi leave the studio without giving him a carpeting that he would have remembered all his life. But this is not a normal country. Norman Vella made the point clearly but could not take it further. The BA had decried that journalists should not indulge in a battibek with their guests.
The Broadcasting Authority is going out of its way to publish draconian rules which in concrete terms have just one effect (undoubtedly not desired by the BA), that is, the undermining of serious and free journalism.
In a normal country journalists would be up in arms. But this is not a normal country. Journalists, over here, get up in arms to serve the time keepers of the B A!
If you want further proof that this is not a normal country read the diktat of the B A about TV shows with the participation of the political leaders. Incredible is the best that one can say about then. And describing something as "incredible" is not a compliment. Similarly it is not a compliment to say that something is far too ambitious.
But since this is not a normal country both terms are considered to be compliments by the instant geniuses that dominate the blogosphere.