Programmes People Watch

You already know what we think of Bondi and Bondi+. But we’re a blog – a particularly difficult customer in the market of public opinion. We pronounced the death of investigative journalism quite some time ago and we never got a reply to the many questions we posed to Lou and his programme guest. But we’re a blog. We are but one opinion in a world of different opinions.

We may have a boringly irrelevant opinion and we may attract a few commentators (not bloggers Lou, not bloggers) that reflect even more opinions yet we are out there – to be read, agreed with or disagreed with. We too create our ripples in public opinion. And sometimes those ripples can be irritating. Irritating to the point that both blogger and commentators can be seen as “paċlieqa” – troublesome chatters that threaten the order of things. (video clip available further down).

Last Tuesday the sans-pareil of Maltese journalism had a programme about the environmental effects of the Delimara project. At one point in the programme he had a little battibecco with Leo Brincat when Leo dared to suggest that it is not only the experts who do not like the government plans but that there is also a strong wave of negative public opinion. At that point Lou Bondi – having earlier dismissed the importance of public opinion in such technical matters – feels threatened and interrupts on one of his classical “points of order”.

Lou is not against public opinion but against public opinion being the measure on technical issues. He throws in a stab at blogs and bloggers “ipeċilqu fuq il-blogs” – an indeterminate verb that is an attempt at superior disdain that backfires. You see Lou’s problem here is that he loses the plot quickly. Very quickly. On the one hand the whole spirit of his program is supposed to be that of an information exercise and the clients of such an exercise are the general public. Presumably they are being provided with facts with which to form an opinion – either that or this is pure entertainment and majtezwel have the bearded lady and a few elephants on the show.

The greater order of things however require that Lou is the arbiter of what is relevant (and definitely not the public). How wrong can he be? The public do not get to choose what is the right machinery – we are not all Profs Edward Mallias – but surely the exercise here is to see whether those entrusted with the choosing have done so in a proper manner and with the public good in mind. That is the relevance of the wave of public opinion that Leo Brincat rightly mentioned. It even goes beyond the NGO‘s.

Public opinion, according to Lou, is not relevant in technical matters. We should assume of course that Lawrence Gonzi‘s place of abode and the distance in meters from the San Antnin processing plant and from Delimara is of some obscure technical relevance only graspable by the likes of Lou. By his reasoning we should not really vote unless we grasp the full (technical) consequences of the decisions that our elected representatives will take – all the decisions.

Moving away from the issue of whether public opinion is or is not relevant in such a discussion, Lou’s blatant disregard of his very clients – the thousands supposed to be watching his every programme (why? not to have an opinion since it is irrelevant – so presumably to drool over his immense capability to orchestrate the stage) is shaming. Where’s Everybody has an English slogan: Programmes People Watch. They really should put a question mark at the end of that statement. Or simply add – Programmes People Watch – and hell if we know why.

Fast forward to proceedings before the Broadcasting Authority and Lou has a damascene moment – he is suddenly all for the public pulse and what they are thinking. Defending his cause for the right to have Norman Lowell on his programme he whips out a very technical criterion:

However, Mr Bondì claimed that, although there was a lot of feedback about the programme, he spoke to all those who felt offended and they later understood the producers’ reasoning that such ideas had to be exposed and challenged. He said Mr Lowell’s popularity had increased over the past years and he garnered almost 4,000 votes in the last election. This was partly because he was only allowed to appear on television without anyone rebutting his claims. This meant there was a public interest motivation in making people realise how dangerous Mr Lowell’s arguments were.

Funny. Leo Brincat (who is also guilty of throwing bloggers into the bipartisan basket – “bloggers taz-zewg nahat”) had simply stated that public opinion should also be important when measuring whether the government was being considered as the right administrator for the awarding of contracts. Lou was quick to dismiss that with a trademark non sequitur and leapt at the opportunity to side-jab the fora he has avoided to face time and time again.

Paċlieqa he says. Programs Paċlieqa Watch. Quite fitting I guess.

Here’s the clip of the relevant parts… and the useless song at the end.

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