Reinstate Mizzi. But not because of the PEC decision

The Press Ethics Commission has set a silly precedent (of no legal standing) with a decision that blames journalists for asking people in authority whether their public roles are untenable when they are make an embarrassing display of themselves, and one that does not befit their roles.

The publisher Joe Mizzi must be, by many accounts, an undeniably fine fellow. Because the disbelief surrounding the airing of footage that came to this newsroom has led to a sanction by the PEC of ‘grave censure’.

In tit-for-tat fashion, the Public Broadcasting Services are asking the journalist who ran this story, Julia Farrugia, whether her role as deputy president of the Institute for Maltese Journalists is tenable. So if journalists are found guilty of libel in courts, does that make them unsuitable to run for the IGM’s posts?

The politically appointed role of chairman of the Public Broadcasting Services is certainly incomparable with the elected position of a journalists’ association. Joe Mizzi as chairman was in a paid position answerable to the minister (and as head of the public broadcaster… the taxpayer).

The PEC says it has found a breach of the code of ethics – Maltese journalism’s standard of good practice – because footage of Mizzi acting groggily while attending to his public duties (apparently, while currying favour with an Azerbaijaini delegation) was punctuated by a fatal question: did Mizzi feel his position as PBS chairman was no longer tenable?

This angle, coupled with the allegation that Mizzi might have been drunk (because Mizzi told Illum that he drank two glasses of white wine and four shots of Jagermeister on the night and had ‘some bug’) aroused the PEC’s suspicion that this story was out to assassinate Mizzi’s character.

I wonder what would have happened hadn’t we asked this question to Mizzi? After all… it was only because Mizzi is a government-appointed functionary that this footage and the accompanying story had any form of relevance. What justification would such a story have had if this person was not the high representative of the national broadcasting service? Was it not because it was in his role as PBS chairman leading the national delegation to the Eurovision Song Contest, that his demeanour deserved an explanation?

The problem with the PEC decision is the way it tries to apportion reasonable blame on the journalist who received the footage. It says that the journalist “found no problem with the fact that the source did not assist Mizzi when he collapsed to the floor.”

That a journalist should be responsible for the moral principles of a source is unheard of. That such events were out of the journalist’s control is obvious to state. And it was not incumbent upon the journalist to take moral umbrage at the source’s footage. That would have been tantamount to self-censorship, on the basis of the assumed deference towards government appointees.

Had this footage been posted on YouTube without a journalist’s mediation: would it have been more moral for the PEC if a newspaper picked it up and reported it? Would it have been less damaging for Mizzi not to be asked to comment on his behaviour and explain?

In the end, it was down to the fact that the footage elicited the kind of ridicule that does not befit a man of Mizzi’s stature – and it so happened that a journalist, rather than an anonymous video blogger, had put her name to this news report and could be blamed:

“The focus of this story as it was reported hinges on the clear suggestion that the PBS chairman ended up in such an embarrassing state – indeed stretched out on the floor ‘inebriated’ [the word used was the colloquial ‘patata’] – due to drink. Although the defendant reported the plaintiff’s comments faithfully, it is clear his explanation was not believed, but discredited. Indeed Mizzi was asked whether he felt his role as PBS chairman was tenable. It is clear that this is where the journalist wanted to arrive at?”

Indeed – where could we arrive at if not to ask a public appointee whether his allegedly intoxicated behaviour somehow marred his authority as PBS chairman?

So does this mean from now on, when we encounter some form of embarrassing or unbecoming behaviour by a government minister or high-ranking civil servant, they should not be held to account, simply because they ridicule themselves?

This decision by the PEC is unfortunate. Its deference to the public image of a respected person like Joseph Mizzi is in full view, and it damages the work that journalists do without fear or favour – even when it means having to take on sacred cows. Not that Mizzi is a sacred cow. He just happens to be a nice bloke on a small island. Too bad for us.