From Dr Claire Bonello
Last week I inspired Lou Bondi. In his article “Flaw and Order”, TMIS, 12 December), Lou abandoned his usual succinct format and rock music ravings to attempt a rambling critique of my article about the Bondiplus programme regarding the alleged teenage rape cases. That programme was largely made up of plaintive voice-overs of the alleged victims’ description of events. Viewers heard how a girl had allegedly been raped with an iron bar, how teenage boys had allegedly rounded up younger girls and bullied and terrorised them into having sex. I had stated that the programme packed plenty of emotional punch which could influence prospective jurors. Lou took this as his cue to call me a naïve commentator on the relationship between the law and the media, an undercover lawyer who considers all prospective jurors to be emotional dimwits unaware of what is going on in other jurisdictions. As Katharine Hepburn once said , “I don’t mind what is written about me as long as it isn’t true” but Lou’s piece bears closer examination.
Lou does not commit the cardinal journalistic error of making sweeping statements and placing all members of a profession in the same basket. He makes an even worse one – that of making unfounded claims and baseless assumptions. He describes me as being smug and rejoicing over the fact that all proceedings relating to the Marsascala minors case are to take place behind closed doors. In fact, I never expressed myself on the matter and Lou knows it. This is not just deliberate misinterpretation but total fabrication and does not make for credible journalism. Stephen Glass, the New Republic reporter who was fired from the paper for making up stories and telling huge whoppers, started out by giving his stories a little spin and putting words in people’s mouths. He went on to make up complete stories, thereby creating havoc and dealing a severe blow to the credibility of his newspaper. “Shattered Glass” is the film which outlines the fall from grace of this one lying journalist. It is a cautionary tale for those who are tempted to colour their columns and attribute opinions to others in support of their untenable arguments.
I am not presumptuous enough to want to teach my grandmother to suck eggs or to tell Lou to quote me correctly, I had assumed that someone who marches out under the banner of “Gurnalizmu fuq Kollox” wouldn’t say that I celebrated the media ban on court proceedings when I did not. I feel distinctly uncomfortable with the blanket ban. Public scrutiny of court proceedings is one of the best guarantees of a fair trial. In an ideal world, where journalists and columnists do their job well, faithful, prudent and timely coverage of court proceedings would be of immense public benefit. However, ours is not an ideal world. The Bondiplus programme about the alleged rapes paid lip service to the concept of fair and unbiased reporting. Concealing the identities of the alleged victims, their relatives and the accused was the least that could be done to avoid legal censure.
To put it very simply, only one party’s version of events was covered and there was no right of instant rebuttal. As a some time lecturer of sociology, Lou is very well aware of the effect that “framing” or “editing” a particular aspect or issue can have on the public’s perception of it. In one of his very first sociology lectures I remember Lou saying that the way an issue is portrayed and the selection of facts which are omitted or ignored, all affect the way we view things.
When viewers see and hear a very moving and emotional account of brutal acts committed on young children might be impressed enough to form a negative idea of the accused, and might not be ready to wait for the whole story to emerge. This does not necessarily mean that they are intellectual morons. It means that they have been overtaken by emotions. It has been known to happen and is the subject of many studies.
In a study published in 2004, American attorney and trial psychologist Dr. Richard Waites cited research which shows that jury verdicts have been found to be influenced by pretrial publicity even after jurors heard all of the evidence. That same publicity can influence a juror’s memory and impression of the evidence contrary to actual testimony, and pretrial publicity that has emotional content is significantly more powerful than publicity that is purely factual.
The potentially prejudicial nature of pretrial publicity has been recognised even by jurisdictions on “the continent” which Lou tells us locals “ta’ wara l-muntanji” to emulate. In Britain, the common law seeks to uphold both free trial and free speech values, by requiring the media to delay comment that would harm judicial proceedings until trial is over, and by punishing the media for contempt in the event of non-compliance. So the taking of precautionary measures to avoid prejudicial publicity is not just something that we do out here in the boondocks, it’s something that is done elsewhere too.
Finally, with the gusto of a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat and with the sort of investigatory zeal of intrepid reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncovering the Watergate scandal, Lou reveals the startling fact that I am a lawyer, implying that I have some kind of vested interest in defending the profession, because that is where I earn my living from. This leaves me completely nonplussed.
Yes, I am a lawyer. I have never denied it, and the fact was mentioned in a couple of magazine articles which lead me to assume (perhaps incorrectly) that readers knew about it. I do not list my professional qualifications besides my name because I think it would be incredibly naf to do so and an attempt at self-advertisement. I am proud to belong to the profession but I fail to see why it should disqualify me from voicing an opinion about the present case, especially when I am not a predominantly criminal lawyer.
If revelations of this nature are all that Lou can come up with in his “Gurnalizmu fuq Kollox” sorties, he should carry out a major rethink. He can harp on about the popularity of his programme, but I wouldn’t set too much stock on being popular. Court jesters always are.
Claire Bonello