Blind Men's Bluff

Part I of a J’accuse analysis  of the programme that signalled the death of investigative journalism in Malta on the 22nd February 2010 – Bondiplus “Gurnalizmu fuq kollox“.

Last Monday, journalism in Malta descended to an unprecedented depth. For a long time now, Maltese journalism has had to carry the labels and innuendos that are the result of being just another graft in the political game between two behemoths intent on a zero-sum race to mediocrity. The lack of quality and audacity in journalism was at first a spin-off and then an accomplice of the great numbing and dumbing down of public perception. Until Monday the 22nd journalism was a victim of partisan bigotry turned perpetrator. Last Monday, in a program conducted by Malta’s record holding, longest-running talk-show host, this unholy alliance of political convenience and neutered journalism gave birth to a new child: we entered a Brave New World where political expediency as we know it (the long arm of the parties) was fazed away and the “journalistic” frankenstein attempted clumsily to take its first few steps in its very own interest. Elsewhere they call it “wheels within wheels”.

Last Monday the producers of the programme Bondiplus decided to tackle what we at J’accuse have been calling Plategate. They could not, for reasons we shall show later, call it anything close to Plategate. In actual fact the subject and content of the programme was not exactly clear until Lou Bondi “facebooked” a few pointers as the programme’s scheduled time approached. For a moment the perceived opinion of viewers (and readers) was that the subject would be about blogs, ethics and obviously Plategate (not the exact term but what it summarises). By 9.54 am on Monday Lou put an end to speculation (sort of) with his facebook status update: “Il-blog ta’ Daphne Caruana Galizia, il-Magistrat Consuelo Scerri Herrera u il-Perit Robert Musumeci diskussi l-lejla f’Bondiplus”.

We did not need to know who the guests on the programme would be – Lou had been pre-empted by Daphne who had informed her readers long before any statement by Bondiplus that “media expert” (we are always reminded this in case we forget) Fr Joe Borg would be the only guest on the programme. I am not sure how many other people being “investigated” (or shall we say “discussed”) by Lou Bondi are given a headstart on the contents of the programme. That’s not enough. Questions had began to be asked why none of the “subjects” of the discussion would be present on the programme – for the answer to that we’d have to wait for the very feeble responses given during the programme itself. The scene was set then and the programme began. In this series on J’accuse we shall deal with different elements of the programme by theme so we will not necessarily be following an “as they happened” chronological order – readers are advised to view the streaming edition on www.di-ve.com (FFW the ads – obnoxiously long 10 min clips).

Cut, Paste and Edit

At one point in the programme Lou explains (to Fr Borg – who else?) that journalists can take a piece of news and make it this size (spreads arms wide) or make it this size (almost touches index fingers together). He was obviously referring to the power of the editor to choose certain screenshots and not others, adopt certain tones in voiceovers and – most crucial of all – present a story from a particular perspective. Having gone through the whole rigamarole of “I am friends with the subjects (does he have them on Facebook?)” but without stating live on TV that he was also a guest at one of the by now infamous dinner parties thrown by the Magistrate and the Architect Lou kicks off the “piecing together of the jigsaw” with excerpts from the police interrogation of Daphne Caruana Galizia.

This choice speaks volumes. Let us not forget that the declared intention of the programme is to examine “il-principji li jincidu fuq dan id-dibattitu pubbliku” (The principles that apply to this public debate). The vaguely defined remit of the programme is basically an extension of Fr Joe Borg’s ethical disquisitions – the demarcation between public and private, the duty of journalists to report, how far one can invade private lives of public persons, when should a journalist report (at some point there was a huge screen with “Meta ghandhom jinkixfu il-borom?” – or something to that effect). One would expect that if we are going to examine a particular case – this particular case – we should try to ask ourselves (as journalists investigating the issue in order to see what ethical principle to apply) when did all this start. More than that we should ask how.

The answer couldn’t be simpler. Daphne Caruana Galizia declared open war of information on or around the 19th of January when she first posted the idea that she knew of the goings on at Magistrate Herrera’s parties and that she would soon come down upon them with great vengeance and furious anger in retaliation. It’s not like our happy couple of Bondi and Borg were unaware of these facts – they took the proof contained in the blog as read. Granted, they will prove to have made  more than a few research and investigative errors of omission in the rest of the programme but this one was too big to miss. For the purposes of the investigative programme it was not possible for Bondi to honestly ignore the real origin of this issue – the report made by Daphne’s husband on the 8th of December 2009. That report is a public document – made even more public by l-Orizzont. It was the perceived threat that the report would be made “even more public” (an interesting recurring concept in Plategate) that prompted Daphne’s reaction and kicked off the blog.

As in Branduardi’s song (La Fiera dell’Est) there is a causal link between each step that needs to be investigated. This information is crucial for a proper analysis of the ethical element of journalistic reporting. Whenever we are going to ask “Should a journalist go public with a certain type of information?” within the context of Plategate we cannot ignore why Daphne went public with the information she collected. If media guru Father Joe Borg needed examples he needn’t have made the gargantuan effort of reading articles on the Sunday papers (it MUST be gargantuan since he still insists that the mainstream media is silent on the issue) – he had one right there yelling infront of him. Or he would have. Had Bondi made the decent choice of presenting that fact to the public. Apparently (and misleadingly) millions of people knew that already – why not tell us himself?

Bondi chose to start from the police interrogation. No prizes for guessing what that choice of setting tells us about the bias in the programme. Daphne is the victim being interrogated by the police. Bondi has consented very investigatively to Daphne providing him with the snippets she chooses and then, even more investigatively, snips them up a bit more himself. Which brings us to the voiceover. We already had to make do with the highly investigative, very talk-show host, extremely credible excuse that Daphne had said all she needed to in the blog so she needn’t be on the programme – so much for Bondi’s prowess in cross-examination. Why did we have to have the boring nasal voiceover ? The least Where’s Everybody could have done is dispatch the record-breaking OBU to Bidnija and get Daphne to read her choice snippets of her replies. Where they afraid of the dog?

The voiceover is a minor detail though. The viewer being introduced to the programme gets the idea of Daphne the victim of a legal aggression – as Lou allows the police to do the questioning. The problem is that the cross-examination at the depot concerned allegations of crimes and misdemeanours – a follow up of a report by Daphne’s victims. It is a deviation from the real issue of journalistic reporting and the ethical principles involved – but it is important for Bondiplus. Think about it. A mention of the police proceedings in Daphne’s regard would have been more related to the general subject of the programme. What needed to be discussed was not the content of the “interrogation” but why Daphne ended up there.

Did Daphne do the right thing by publishing information she had been privvy too for some time at the moment she did? Was Magistrate Herrera entitled to react with the legal proceedings she chose to react? When should a journalist – blogger or mainstream – be protected for this kind of whistleblowing? As it is the police interrogation clip turned out to be useful only to picture Daphne as the victim threatened with jail and set the tone for the viewing public in the direction Bondiplus was choosing.

Bondiplus have every right to make editorial choices they wish. When these demonstrate patent bias and an inability to perform the service they promise the viewers then persons are in every right to criticise without being called names. This long post has treated the prelude and the initial direction given to the programme on the day that journalism died. We have more in store coming up. Give us time to set out all our arguments before you judge this content.

L’acte que j’accomplis ici n’est qu’un moyen révolutionnaire pour hâter l’explosion de la vérité et de la justice.

Je n’ai qu’une passion, celle de la lumière, au nom de l’humanité qui a tant souffert et qui a droit au bonheur. Ma protestation enflammée n’est que le cri de mon âme. Qu’on ose donc me traduire en cour d’assises et que l’enquête ait lieu au grand jour !

J’attends.

– Emile Zola, J’accuse