j'accuse | Tag Archive

Clueless at Bondiplus

Posted on 17. Aug, 2010 by jacques in Mediawatch

This has to be the facebook quote of the week. After last season’s ‘controversial’ programmes Bondi+ will be back again with more of the topical, relevant and cutting edge investigative journalism. Don’t hold your breath though, judging by today’s facebook post we are in for another mind-numbing ride:

Lou Bondi: This is the time of year when I start getting a knot in the stomach: how can we come up with another 9 months worth of topics for Bondiplus? Then the knot goes away by mid-September and before I know it its June. 18 years in the business and the same thing happens every year.

Go figure.

Is Facebook Evil, or Just Clueless? (crenshawcomm.com)

I.M. Jack – The Sweltering in the Sun Edition

Posted on 19. Jul, 2010 by jacques in Rubriques

The Holocaust Denier, the Creationist and other Twits

Normal Lowell has struck again. The inveterate hardliner has written a letter to the Malta Independent on Sunday in reply to a previous article about Auschwitz (Reflections on Auschwitz. My personal experience). Now Lowell being a very good player of the media limelight (as Lou Bondi does not seem to have noticed), he must be feeling rather eclipsed by all the other victims of the country’s draconian freedom of expression rules. What with the various Realtà’s and Stitching’s going around there seems to be no more place for good old fashioned fascist hogwash. What does Lowell do? He turns up the ante and goes for the kill. What better way than a Holocaust Denial – Blasphemy Combo?

Here’s Normal’s letter:

Reflections on Auschwitz

Stop being a gullible fool to Jewish lies. You are doing a great disservice to your readers by spreading the biggest lie since the Virgin Mary.
Educate yourself to the truth.
Norman Lowell

ATTARD

For starters I am not in favour of legislation against holocaust denial. It is an opinion on a historical fact that is equivalent to Creationist explanations about dinosaurs. It is a twisted opinion rooted in denial of fact, true, but still remains an opinion. Holocaust deniers should be free to voice their opinion if only to be outed as the absurd, ignorant twits that they really are. We could then tell the wheat from the chaff. If we were to simply legislate against a man having an opinion then we would be contradicting ourselves. Why not legislate against creationist theory then? Or against the whole Catholic Imposition movement against divorce?Now if Lowell were to do something to act upon his opinion – say desecrate a commemorative plaque in the country or spray paint on a synagogue or whatever then yes, by all means throw the Denier into jail.

But back to Lowell. He must be craving for the limelight again and since Lou Bondi is busy preparing a very intriguing Bondiplus about Mayan calendars and the end of the world on 12-12-12 (Divorce? Censorship? White Rocks? where’s everybody?) Lowell needed a new diversion. So he hit on a brainwave. Let us provoke both laymen (holocaust denial) and catholics (denial of Virgin Mary doctrine) in one. Bingo. And the die was cast.

While I believe that the provocation should be given as much attention as a Minister’s unveiling of some marble sign in Bubaqra it will be interesting to see whether the authorities that be are willing to give us an example of their consistent and uniform application of the law. After all if the law is equal for all then what applies to a Vella Gera and to a Neilson should, technically, apply to a Lowell.

Note to the TMIS editor. I am fully aware that I am advocating for a legal action to be taken against both the signatory of the letter as well as against the editor of the paper but it is purely out of a well intentioned quest to see whether there is an element of consistency in the application of the law on the island. Should, perchance, you end up in Kordin I will be willing to bring you both tea and biscuits as well as some interesting reading. Consider this as a tiny revenge for the title of last Sunday’s editorial. Yes, thirty-five years is indeed a long time but did I need reminding?

Food, Drink and Fun

A little update on the epicurean side of the holiday. The sea is incredibly beautiful in Malta. It may sound like a tautological statement but I am pleasantly surprised by the clarity of the sea and cleanliness. (n.b. Refers to all Comino Bays and Armier and Ghadira).

Foodwise I enjoyed the military Tmun (Mgarr) and his Asian Fried Calamari seemed divine (though I stuck with the Pagella). Terraces may be nice, picturesque and all that bla but as tweetbuddy Bocca confirmed nothing beats good old fashioned airconditioning in this heat.

Il-Lantern (Marsalforn) owned by the family of my childhood footballing buddy must surely churn out the best Rabbit Stew on the island (by far). It’s cooked by Rafel (the aforementioned footballing buddy) who braves the sweltering heat of the kitchen to give you a plate worthy of the gods. You get to eat in a very homely atmosphere, genuinely local and if you tarry long enough you might get involved in a tombola session – the rabbit stew though is divine (and I am told so is the pasta). No silver service but a pleasant platinum plate for the palate.

Finally I ended up at Cockney’s (Valletta) yesterday for a Sunday evening meal and thoroughly enjoyed hogging through my second pagella of the holiday. One thing though – Italian white wines might be good (Glicine, Gavi di Gavi and all) but I’m quite sure that a Mosel Riesling or a Gewurztraminer would wed well with the fish and refuse to even contemplate a divorce. Stock up please

J’accuse : Friends

Posted on 06. Jun, 2010 by jacques in Articles

I am happy to say that I have a lot of friends who vote Nationalist (or Labour). I am not, if I may add, particularly ashamed to be seen with them. There. I’ve said it. I’ve come out and said it. It was killing me really, having to keep this secret to myself all this time, but now that I’ve come out and relieved myself of this bit of info burdening my conscience I feel much better.

If my declaration does not sound ridiculous enough, then what would you think if I felt the need to specify that “Actually I have some friends who are black”? You’d think me to be some weirdo living in some pre-Rosa Parks world of racial segregation. Incidentally, this is the 50th anniversary of the publication of that magnificent book by Harper Lee To Kill a Mockingbird – published only five years after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man on a bus. I owe Harper Lee much of the inspiration for taking the legal career path, thanks to her unflinching Atticus Finch. Ironically, Harper Lee lives a very segregated life in Monroeville, Alabama (the real Maycomb from the story), conceding few interviews and having written pretty much nowt since the book that was voted into the top 10 must-reads of a lifetime (beating the Bible in the process).

It is very probable that the Mockingbird is a fictionalised autobiography of Harper Lee and that the character Scout in the book is actually Lee herself. Her best friend in the book, named Dill, is thought to be Harper Lee’s childhood friend Truman Capote. Though the friendship drifted apart in later years, neither of them was ever heard to say that they were ashamed of knowing one another.

Gays in the village

You know where I am coming from with all this “I have X friends” business – and no I do not mean Facebook. I am obviously referring to Prof. Anthony Zammit’s remark during the proceedings before the House Social Affairs Committee (HSAC) at the temple of conservatism and bigotry. The subject was “the situation of homosexuals and transgender individuals” in Malta, and the information that we have at hand comes with the courtesy of a very “xarabankified” Times as one of my readers described it. For it is important to bear in mind that, in fulfilling its reporting duty, the Strickland House product seems to have shifted towards a more “provocative” approach in the presentation of its material – in some cases denaturing the very subject being reported.

It was thusly that The Times’ David Schembri kicked off with a very titillating title What Happens in the Bedroom is the Government’s Business only to fall foul of the timesofmalta.com inquisition and retract to a more moderate Parliament discusses gay rights (technical geeks did notice that the permalink (article’s web address) remained the same though – baby steps for The Times tech). So yes, as in Malawi, gay rights are still an issue for Malta’s democratic institutions to discuss.

What makes an individual (you’ve got to love the stressed use of the term ‘individual’ in the title on the HSAC’s agenda) gay? What is a gay couple? And what roles do they perform in the household? These are some of the crucial questions that seem to be automatically raised in this committee that feels and acts very much like some Victorian committee questioning Darwin’s preposterous assertions on apes, men and the like.

Only that here, thanks to a mixture of confused (and I may add unfair) reporting and clueless honourable gentlemen, we were not discussing the evolutionary merits of the opposable thumb but rather issues of a more personal nature of thousands of ‘individuals’ who inhabit the islands of Malta in the 21st century. We needn’t go so far as examining the red-hot issue of “gay adoption” that inevitably sparks fires and heats debates even in the most liberal of nations. We are talking of basic rights and liberties – such as the right to marry (and I speak of the civil law right for people not giving two hoots about sacraments humanly concocted in some Diet or Council in Trent).

Queer folk

The news from the HSAC was not promising though. There seemed to be much banter about whether it was the government’s business to have an eye in every bedroom. Edwin Vassallo’s assertion that “Yes it was” because we bear the consequences of such things as “teenage pregnancies and single parenthoods” looked slightly out of place in a forum discussing couples whose ability to reproduce among themselves can best be described as impossible. So unless some new religion is in the making, complete with dogma of “impossible conception”, something was definitely wrong with the perspective of the lawmakers in the House. Sure The Times correspondent peppered his “report” with anecdotes about MGRM’s ideas on “creative ways to have children” but surely this was not the original point of the agenda?

It then moved to the slightly queer (sorry) when Honourable Conservative Member Beppe Fenech Adami resorted to ballistic logic (in the sense that he approached the subject with the same level of convincing logic as a suicide terrorist strapped with explosives): What roles for gay partners? Who’s the man and who’s the woman in a relationship? Given that it is already hard to determine such “roles” in the post-nuclear family – we’ve all heard the one about the one who wears the trousers – the questions were as anachronistic as they were offensive. As BFA proceeded to prove that, since switching roles is not done in his domus, it couldn’t work anywhere else, the gods of logic threw a tantrum and collectively resigned.

At which point you can picture Prof. Anthony Zammit making his dramatic entry armed with a Damocletian sword and delivering the coup de grace to a discussion that never really stood on tenable grounds. “I have gay friends and I am not ashamed to be seen with them in public”. Ta-da indeed. I must confess that I do not know much about Prof. Zammit beyond what I read in the papers, but even had the pinker corners of the web not led to my discovery that he had more than a passing interest in the discussion, the kind of statement he came up with is flabbergastingly ridiculous. The only conclusion we could draw from the “xarabankified” report was that our current crop of representatives is far from representing a large crop of the voting population.

Friends of friends

There’s that phrase again. Programmes on TV this week were rather amusing. Lou (of Bondiplus of Where’s Everybody?) got spanked on the backside by the BA for his Lowell programme, so Peppi (of Xarabank of Where’s Everybody?) set up a programme discussing freedom of expression and Lou’s spanking. Guests on the programme? Another ta-da moment. Lou Bondi and the ubiquitous media guru Joe Borg Father. I spotted WE’s Norman Vella on Facebook claiming that “In this programme Lou Bondi will not be the only guest. He will face people who publicly expressed themselves against his programme with Norman Lowell”. Incidentally, he was replying to a comment by Borg Cardona who had just implied that the Xarabank programme had an incestuous element in it.

The criteria used by the Xarabank crew reminds me of certain Times’ editorials (or of a conversation between Lou and Fr Joe) where they seem to assume that they are the only people to have a relevant opinion or to have actually expressed an opinion on any given subject. All three – Xarabank, Bondiplus and The Times – have become an institutionalised form of their relative medias and it is in that spirit that they are criticised. Frankly, all three could hold whatever opinion they like but their constant editorial position that obliterates any opinion they consider irrelevant (for irrelevant read uncomfortable to deal with) is worrying and stinks of a systematic effort to retain the stranglehold that they have built over a large chunk of the fourth estate.

I am not too sure that the credibility of all three is the same as they enjoyed a while back, even among the more conservative of elements. Having long abdicated one of the primary journalistic duties of proper investigation, they are now lost in a navel-gazing world of their own and they have constantly proved unable to deal with the wider democratisation of the media. While their voices might still be strong enough to be heard, and while they can still afford to ignore the disparate contradictory elements, they are noticing that their grasp is weakening and their efforts to remedy the situation is only leading them to descend into the comically absurd. So yes. We have Lou as a guest on Peppi’s show discussing how Lou and Peppi’s company should be allowed freedom of expression. Jolly good, I say.

Friendly fire

Finally, a few notes on friendly fire. Joseph Muscat was on Myriam Dalli’s TX this week. TX is a programme on Labour’s One TV (did I mention that we STILL have party-owned TVs in 21st century Malta?), so such notions as bias and doctored questions are only to be expected as annoying intervals in between shots of that Mediterranean beauty that is the programme presenter. The other person on the show glared at the camera and warned of the problems of corruption in the country while standing fast behind such weird notions as carte blanche for whistleblowers and promising the people €50 million (take from Peter give back to Peter) for the “unjust tax on vehicles”. Rather than traipsing uselessly with the kangaroos, Joe might want to polish up his knowledge of recent (very recent) ECJ jurisprudence before harping on about the latter subject. (I have friends who studied European Law and I am not ashamed to be seen with them).

Two notes on GonziPN and friends. Well done for the WiFi spots around the country. That is a bit more tangible than all the words about Vision 2015. Surely you should warn interested citizens that “free public WiFi” is not eternal. As in all similar European projects, expect a shift to paid services in the near future – whether big brother tells you or not. Also GonziPN’s little tryst with “non-politicians” at Vision2015+ felt like a very manufactured and simulated business among friends. Funny that name – Vision 2015+. A government plan gets a “+” tagged onto it and it becomes a party meet. A bit like programmes getting a “+” on their name on national TV. All they needed were Lou and Peppi at Vision 2015+ … but wait… they were there. So it’s OK, innit?

www.akkuza.com (j’accuse) has 301 friends on its Facebook page. Would you be ashamed to be seen as one of them?

Programmes People Watch (II)

Posted on 01. Jun, 2010 by jacques in Mediawatch

Friday on Xarabank. Where’s Everybody discusses Where’s Everybody. Fresh from their appearance at PN’s Vision 2015+ (a conference for non-politicians – whatever that may mean) Peppi and Lou debate Lou. With a little help from their friends. Here’s the “synopsis” sent round by Xarabank:

Freedom of Expression: Where to draw the line? Where is the limit? Should television programmes give space to ideas such as those of Norman Lowell or should these be censored or even banned? Xarabank discusses. Amongst others in the panel, journalist Lou Bondi, media expert Fr Joe Borg, Chief Justice Emeritus Prof Giuseppe Mifsud Bonnici and National Commission Persons with Disability chairman Joseph M Camilleri.

You’ve just got to love them. Can you imagine the dilemma at Xarabank’s production team? …

Do we get Lowell?

But would getting Lowell answer the question?

OK OK. So do we get Lou?

And if we have Lou we need a media expert.

Is there anyone we can think of?

I think I heard Lou mention a Fr Joe Borg.

Ok. So it’s Lou and Joe right?

Yes. But no. But but but but that would be a bit too much like the programme on Daphne’s Blog.

What programme on Daphne’s Blog?

You know the one where they talked about everything but the blog

… ah that one. So we’ll just get two more cameo appearances – is anyone else talking about it?

Hmm… not anyone worth inviting…

let’s just get JoJo and spomeone from the disabled community – sorry. persons with disability – and have them talk about how offensive Lowell is.

Should be a good programme – after all people love controversy and Lowell.

Lowell – programmes people watch.

Selective Defence is Bondi’s Plus

Posted on 21. May, 2010 by jacques in Mediawatch

J’accuse has received a copy of Lou Bondi’s defence argument before the Broadcasting Authority. It makes for very very interesting reading. Much as we would like to enter the debate on the issue of whether or not Lowell should have been allowed on the programme (and elsewhere we have done just that), we are more intrigued by the manner in which this ‘apologia’ continues to expose Lou’s selective amnesia as well as double-standards with regards to the weight of public opinion.

You will find below a link to the full document presented by Lou Bondi to the BA and you might like to read through it with particular attention to point 12 – regarding public opinion. Two questions stand out: firstly that Lou is arguing a technical point based on the very public opinion he chose to minimise in the Delimara program (Programmes People Watch).

Then there is the blatant selective amnesia – such as has been displayed before on the occasion of the infamous Plategate Bondiplus programme. Just look at point 12 of Lou’s apologia: first he quotes media guru Joe Borg and then he quotes an article in the Times – referring to the comments section. Having thus exhausted (according to Lou) all instances where his programme was mentioned and criticised he concludes:

Jidher car li ftit hafna kienu dawk li argumentaw li l-programm ma’ kellux isir. Interessanti wkoll li hafna minn dawk li qalu li l-programm kellu jsir, jikkritikaw, anki bl-ahrax, lil NL.

Brilliant. But false. Lou would like everybody to believe it. He probably believes it himself but the problem is tha this very forum chronicled the response in the mainstream media for you in the post entitled Gurnalizmu fuq Kollox (The Sunday Quotes). Claire Bonello, Mikela Spiteri and Tanja Cilia – all on the Times – and the Indy in a report all mentioned and criticised Bondiplus without any qualms.

You will notice of course that this assessment of all that Lou left out does not include the boringly irrelevant reality of the “peclieqa” on blogs… still, even without that proof you can see how selective Lou has been.

If you want a wider assessment of public opinion then dive to the wiked site youropenbook.org and input “norman lowell”. J’accuse has done it for you just click here. Scroll down to the period on and after 3rd May and see for yourself.

The farce continues….

Click to open the “Risposta BA re: Lowell” file.

Programmes People Watch

Posted on 19. May, 2010 by jacques in Mediawatch

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.

Who Killed Journalism? Jonathan Alter? (newser.com)
5 Ways The BBC Gets People Watching Their Videos (socialtimes.com)
Armando Iannucci: #bigotgate turned UK media into ‘pack of shrieking gibbons’ (blogs.journalism.co.uk)
There is no such thing as public opinion (clubtroppo.com.au)
Live blogging the general election (guardian.co.uk)
Would you trust opinion data that came from Twitter? (smartblogs.com)
“Public Opinion” (andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com)

The Right to think Racist

Posted on 10. May, 2010 by jacques in Politics

Lou Bondi has been forced to justify his choice of interviewing Norman Lowell after the BA Authority accused Bondiplus of violating the Broadcasting Act and subsidiary legislation aimed at ensuring the promotion of racial equality.

Presenter Lou Bondì insisted yesterday he chose to interview Mr Lowell in order to delve beyond his thoughts on illegal immigration and help the Maltese understand the full force of the horrors of racism. “I am convinced that the best way of dealing with objectionable ideas is to discuss them, investigate them and expose them…,” he said. (Times)

Well. If the best way of dealing with objectionable ideas is to discuss them, investigate them and expose them I guess we should expect many more discussions on a large number of PLPN policies in the coming weeks. Of course we did not expect Lou to inform the BA that Norman was the only subject he could think of and that the investigative minefield (administrative law, tendering procedures, interested party amnesia, party interests etc) posed by the awarding of the BWSC contract was too complicated a task when compared to just putting a man with objectionable ideas on prime time national TV and letting him talk.

This nonsense of fining, shutting up and gagging people who have different ideas must stop. If our only way of countering their arguments is by obliterating them from view then we have reached a sad point in our society. Let him speak I say. The day we elect a crazed right winger to parliament then only one thought comes to mind: we deserve it.

I cannot fathom how we can talk of representative democracy on one hand and then engineer the rules to twist the representation to obliterate ugly elements. By that standard I’d like to see less and less of PLPN in the current format: how about defining them as objectionable too?

Lou is guilty of contributing heavily to the mediocrity of national discourse and engagement. He should not pay for this via some ridiculous assault on the freedom of expression. He cannot use this as his defence but frankly I think it is much stronger than his objectionable nonsense.

***

ADDENDUM

I had almost missed this one since I stopped checking on this column some time back but hey, curiosity pays. Another opinion on the Bondiplus Lowell farce.

This time it’s a friend of Lou’s doing the run down – and you can tell the extreme difficulty Joe had in constructing a critical argument to blame PBS, the producers (not Lou?) or anyone but Lou (you just have to love the “presenters of lesser stature than Lou” (does he mean shorter?))….

Anyways here is what Media Expert (Fr) Joe Borg had to say about the programme. Do note – PBS must publicly apologise for the mistake. Lou, the poor man, is just a cog of certain stature in the big wheels of the machinery.

What irked me most about the programme was its lack of context which could have perhaps justified the hurt caused because of some overriding public interest. A friend of mine smsed me with the question: is there a survey going on now? His is a very cynic position. Many people will accuse Lou of selling himself for ratings. I do not share this position. I am sure that the reasons Lou had for producing the programme were good and praiseworthy. I think he did it believing the programme would discredit Lowell. I do not doubt his intention but I also believe that he was totally off the mark.

I fear that now presenters of lesser stature than Lou would invite Lowell to their programme as this is how the media circus works. They would not be as prepared as Lou was and consequently Lowell would fare better in such programmes. This would give Lowell more publicity.

Lowell is a nobody. Election result after election result showed that he has not succeeded in riding the xenophobic attitude of many Maltese. He has been given his fair share of exposure which could have then been justified by the argument that people had to be informed about the monstrosity of his ideas. To-day, I think, that argument is no longer valid. He is just a fringe politician spouting hate. There is no place for the propagation of hate on public service TV.

PBS should take an editorial decision that Lowell would not be given coverage on the station barring exceptional circumstances due to some overriding public interest.

Would I be asking too much if I urge PBS to publicly apologise for this mistake?

Gurnalizmu fuq Kollox – the Sunday quotes

Posted on 09. May, 2010 by jacques in Mediawatch

Some time ago J’accuse commented on how Bondi’s programme Bondiplus represented the death of investigative journalism. Only last week we pointed out the incongruency of the next programme planned by Lou – with Norman Lowell as guest. So. Is it still Gurnalizmu fuq Kollox? Hardly. Here’s what was said in the press today:

The day after last Monday’s show, when people were aghast in that very ‘what was Bondi thinking’ sort of way, disturbed by the exposure he was given, seeing it as some sort of incitement to racial hatred, I on the other hand seemed unable to fathom what all the fuss was about. Lowell worries me as much as Mary Poppins does. The only worrying thing about last Monday’s programme was that we were hardly going to be in for any surprises and we certainly were not going to hear anything we hadn’t already heard before. – Mikela Spiteri (“Our very own inglorious basterd“, Times)

When you consider these factors, it’s not surprising to see why Bondi invited Lowell along during a period when the topic of immigration is not very topical. Put yourself in his shoes. You can root around for a relevant subject (preferably one that puts the Labour Party in a bad light and hasn’t already been done to death in previous editions), spend long hours carrying out tedious research, and then have a programme where people only wake up for the closing credits and Rod Stewart crooning away. Alternatively, you could invite Lowell, choose choice extracts from a book which has been published for years, make a quick photomontage of black icons, and let Lowell do the talking. You’d be guaranteed a much wider audience with minimal effort, and if it was audience survey week, you’d be in with a winner. Never mind the fact that you’re providing a visibility platform for someone who spouts obnoxious and criminal views. That’s just a tiny niggle to be ignored when you’re in the business of producing ‘Programmes People Watch’. I wonder if the earlier Bondiplus slogan ‘Ġurnaliżmu Fuq Kollox’ has been replaced. It would look like it. – Claire Bonello (“Chasing ratings, not respect“, Times)

This week, Lou Bondí decided to take a break from the sublime and descend to the ridiculous. This week’s Bondí+ treated us to a people-bashing session by Norman Lowell, wearing his cravat backwards. The arguments were as cohesive as a jigsaw puzzle with several bits missing. But it was unfair of Bondí to try to put words into Lowell’s mouth by dint of repetition. – Tanja Cilia (“Blank versus“, Times)

One wonders whether these assertions will be met with the usual wall of deafening silence. There were also reactions elsewhere. The Indy reports that the BA has issued a charge against PBS for the Bondiplus Norman Lowell programme:

The Bondiplus programme led to mixed reactions and many heated discussions online, particularly on Facebook, with some arguing that the right to free speech should also include Mr Lowell’s right to express his beliefs, while others pointed out that his racist views were tantamount to incitement to hatred of specific groups, and therefore illegal. Other viewers felt that the programme only served to ridicule Mr Lowell, thus neutralising any potential influence he may have on viewers. While there were those who admitted they merely watched the programme “for a laugh”, there is real concern that Lowell’s followers are increasing in number, especially among the younger age group. (Independent)

Meanwhile Lou has been providing his guru expertise to the MZPN. Here’s a link to a pre-UK election discussion where Lou and Refalo discuss the extreme dangers of unstable government. MZPN Vid on Facebook

It’s another we told you so moment for J’accuse. As Chris would say: we’re doing the I told you so dance… all over again.

The Day Journalism Died

Posted on 28. Feb, 2010 by jacques in Mediawatch, Uncategorized

The J’accuse column on the Independent today – a summary of this week’s analysis of an episode of Bondiplus – Winner of the Best Current Affairs Programme at the Malta Television Awards.

(more…)

Lou (can’t) Read

Posted on 25. Feb, 2010 by jacques in Mediawatch

Part II of the J’accuse analysis of the programme that signalled the death of investigative journalism in Malta on the 22nd February 2010 – Bondiplus “Thinking Allowed”. (more…)

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