The Untruth Game

Now that elections within the next few months are no longer a possibility but a downright certainty, it may be opportune to question why practically nothing has ever been done about the sorry state of political broadcasting in Malta in 2012: a good 25 years after the PN came into power precisely on the promise of a broadcasting reform.

All things considered, it is simply inconceivable that that we should approach yet another general election in a national media atmosphere of spin, paranoia, controlled information and blatant, State-sponsored propaganda.

This would be unacceptable at the best of times. But in an age where communications technology is evolving at a pace with which it is hard to keep up - and with the resulting emergence of an ever-more informed, discerning and demanding general public - the impression one gets when watching State TV is that the persons responsible for its output are so far behind the times, and so very far-removed from the digital age in which we are living, that they almost belong to a forgotten prehistoric era.

And in a sense they do: for though communications technology may have advanced in leaps and bounds since the 1980s, the overtly political use of State TV has remained unchanged in any meaningful way since the distant days of Xandir Malta.

To talk of this as an anachronism is almost to overstate the obvious. We were after all led to believe that the Nationalist Party, which had suffered so much in the Xandir Malta era, would leave no stone unturned to ensure that such abuses would never recur. We were also given to understand that EU accession in 2004 would introduce much-needed standards: in broadcasting as much as any other department.

On both counts, however, we have been proved wrong. EU membership did nothing to dilute the overt propaganda that passes for 'news' on the State broadcaster. On the contrary: it only gave TVM's spin doctors more material to spin.

Likewise, successive Nationalist administrations since 1987 have spectacularly forgotten all their promises regarding broadcasting before that seminal election; and have instead - as was the case with the police, and other institutions mired by the excesses of the 1980s Labour administration - exploited the existing pro-government bias for their own ends.

Examples are almost too many to list out here. We have all seen manoeuvres and developments in recent months that have served only to compound the impression of a State broadcaster interested only in protecting the interests of a select elite, while attempting to discredit or turn public opinion against any government critic.

Viewers will no doubt recall that stunning episode of Bondiplus in which its host, the omnipresent Lou Bondì, had sought (unsuccessfully) to reduce Franco Debono to his own personal pet parrot, expecting him to literally mimic his words: "Repeat after me: I, Franco Debono, want to bring down the government...".

Another good example would be the extraordinary treatment given by Bondiplus to the more recent John Dalli resignation affair. In fact it is astonishing that Bondì would even discuss the issue at all: given his past own involvement with previous Dalli controversies - not least, the fact that a former colleague of his (Joe Zahra) had been instrumental in the 2004 fabricated SIMED report that prompted Dalli's resignation as foreign minister in 2004.

Earlier still, Dalli himself had spelt out his suspicions about Bondì: "Joe Zahra produced programmes for Lou Bondì and authored a false report that led to me being dumped from the Cabinet... Bondì later used his programme to deal me the fatal blow," Dalli said, referring to his participation on Bondiplus just days before his resignation. Yet despite such conspicuous evidence of an undisguised agenda against John Dalli, neither the national broadcaster TVM, nor the Broadcasting Authority that is supposed to regulate such matters as impartiality on State broadcasting, saw anything remotely wrong with the same Lou Bondì once again using his bi-weekly platform on TVM to perform his own dissection of the Dalli resignation, without even trying to elicit a proper discussion with outside observers instead of having him act as judge, jury and prosecutor.

Nor is the issue of bias and hidden agendas limited to just Bondiplus. At one point, Where's Everybody director Joe Azzopardi almost took offence, when a MaltaToday journalist (who was a guest on TVHEMM) failed to defend Dalli when asked directly if the EU Commissioner should have resigned.

Instead, the journalist merely echoed the editorial line of this paper - which is simply that Dalli should, in fact, have resigned; especially if the allegations against him turn out to be true. Exactly why this response should have angered Mr Azzopardi - who evidently would have preferred MaltaToday to exhibit a bias in Dalli's favour - is at best a mystery: but a mystery that sheds light on the way the national station operates.

All this stands in stark contrast to how the international media reported the same issue. Regardless of their own agendas for or against (or indifferent to) the European Commission, various foreign newspapers and other media displayed far more prudence and maturity when dealing with Dalli's resignation. Both eurosceptic and europhile media were perfectly willing to give John Dalli the benefit of the doubt. One can only question why Malta's State broadcaster seems to have had an interest in doing precisely the opposite.