The other issue relating to bias presented itself fittingly just as I was being discharged from my one-day stay in hospital. The one and only guest on Where’s Everybody’s TVHEMM was the indefatigable Franco Debono. Franco’s interlocutor on the programme would be the usual presenter – Norman Vella. The programme was presumably supposed to be Franco’s compensation for not having been allowed to appear on Friday’s Xarabank opposite Simon Busuttil – and the subject of yesterday’s programme was supposed to be why Franco Debono voted against the budget.
I had already had a chance to see Norman Vella at work just after the budget vote. Given that I am not regular viewer of national TV I could not compare this performance to previous occasions though I had heard that he ran quite a good show on TVHEMM. His post-budget questioning made me quickly forget any plaudits I may have heard in the grapevine – his was a biased performance throughout, no two ways about it. Norman Vella was at no point interested in compèring the discussion and seemed to be an agent of the nationalist party throughout the show. Heaven forbid that our talk show hosts fade away anonymously in the background as was wont to happen in the eighties during pre-election broadcasts. I’m all for investigative and inquisitive journalism always on the hunt for the scoop or for acting as an additional check on our politicians inconsistencies.
Having said that Norman Vella’s modus operandi has nothing to do with journalism. On the post-budget debate his attitude towards Arnold Cassola was atrocious. It reminded me of the 2008 Pierre Portelli belittling the third party on live television. What is this fixation with coalitions anyway? Is that all that Vella and Co can think of when they face the only party that seems to have concrete progressive counterarguments to the budget? Forget all that, forget what AD might be trying to get across…what counts for Vella and Co is any attempt to put AD in the bad light of “a coalition as they understand it”.
Because after Franco, JPO and Mugliett the Nationalist party apparatus has performed magical summersaults in an attempt to denigrate the idea of a coalition in government. The fallacy is based on the fact that they try to make it sound as though the JPO-PN or Franco-PN arrangement was anything similar to a coalition. Well have I got news for you. It isn’t and it never was. JPO and PN cohabited in parliament after their public split. They were elected on the same ticket with the same agenda. If there was a split it was the PN’s problem – no new entity was created, no new ideals and definitely no coalition. If anything it was a dirty cohabitation.
Franco? A coalition? Franco was a result of ONE FRACTURED PARTY. No coalitions there either. A real coalition is formed by two parties AFTER an election when none of the parties elected to parliament enjoy a majority. That is assuming that we get three parties elected. So when Norman Vella decides to put on his latest idiot face (per modo di dire) and ask “Ma min taghmilha koalizzjoni?” Whether he is addressing Arnold Cassola or Franco Debono, he knows that he is just being facetiously ridiculous. A coalition is created by two parties once their power in parliament is known and is agreed to on the basis of a set of electoral promises that each party brings to the table. Norman Vella (probably) knows that. He is not a journalist though. Like JPO in 2008 he is a nationalist bearing a journalist’s card.
Yesterday, the apex of journalistic integrity decided to introduce a video clip about what Maestro Calleja had said during some University award ceremony. The relevance of the contents of this clip to the budget debate and vote will only remain known to Norman Vella and the Where’s Everybody team. Gurnalizmu fuq Kollox? Sensational journalism they mean. Biased even. The only interest of that clip was to work up Franco Debono into one of his heated states. It is a huge weakness that the man has – unable to notice that the more he huffs and puffs the more he sounds unreasonable. I am sure that WE were banking on that too when they chose to put Franco before the equally loud, mannerless and distasteful compère. Let’s face it. This was a show not a program.
Does our TV need this kind of bias? Isn’t it obvious that the closer we get to the election the more panic-stricken certain sectors of the media are getting. It’s pathetic all round. On the one hand you could already sense the labour “journalistic” crowd partitioning the new pie between them, much before the election is over. On the other hand the last pathetic attempts to grasp onto anything that might win their patrons valuable points leave the incumbents looking like a sorrier bunch than they usually do.
Andrew Borg Cardona likes to tweet that I am obsessed about this matter (maybe not as obsessed as he is about the elfish business). But if you are too blind to see how the PLPN rot of doing things has penetrated every sector of society then there’s a fat chance that this rot has got to you. Still. Makes for some interesting blog posts – think you not?
5 replies on “Questions of Bias II”
Ho hum. Looks like this Norman guy is “biased” not because he rattled Debono’s cage but because a question he asked in 2008. A perfectly legitimate question in the circumstances, by the way: you’re right in saying that most coalitions are post-electoral affairs but in 2008 the Green Party (a party that had never elected an MP much less held the parliamentary balance) presented coalition as a fait accompli. It was presented as if all “i”s had been dotted and all “t”s crossed. One very little minor detail was missing and poor Norman had the temerity to ask about it.
Zlaqt fin-niexef Faust. The 2008 statement (not question) was by Pierre Portelli. Norman is busy being biased now and judging by his performance today he’s doing quite a good job of it.
If that’s the case then you ought to correct the sentence in the blog post … including the grammar.
Nah. Just reread it. And it does say “the 2008 Pierre Portelli comment”. Not as ambiguous as you’d make it sound.
[…] Blind Men’s Bluff, Lou Can’t Read, and The Day Journalism Died as well as Questions of Bias). What is being played out post-election is equivalent to a post-mortem unveiling of the ugly parts […]