The world stopped last Sunday night when the 100-metre dash in the athletics world championships was held in Berlin. Usain Bolt stunned the world, as he had done in the Beijing Olympic Games last year, by shattering the world record once again. He ran the distance in 9.58 seconds, 0.11 faster than his old record, a staggering feat indeed.
The whole world was overawed by the achievement, also because of the simplicity with which the Jamaican sprinter overcame the stiff resistance of his competitors. It was as if the race was over soon after the starting gun went off. One gets the impression that Bolt can run even faster, and what seemed impossible – a 100-metre race in nine seconds – seems possible now.
Immediately, foreign news agencies sent in their photographs and reports of what was described as possibly the best ever 100-metre race. The story made the headlines on CNN, BBC, Sky and all other news agencies, and was on the front page of all reputable newspapers the next day.
The whole world talked about it.
The whole world except PBS, the national broadcasting station.
It did not feature on the 11pm news on Sunday, and neither did it feature in the news briefs that were broadcast the followed morning at 7am. Maybe Usain Bolt ran too fast for PBS to notice.
The sports section of L-Ghodwa t-Tajba, PBS’s early morning update, contained features that had little importance locally and internationally, such as the Belgian football league, but did not carry anything about Bolt’s victory.
The story was not even picked up by the news department, and of course did not feature in the news section.
To be fair, it was mentioned when the newspaper headlines were being read. Which means that PBS, even if for some reason it might have missed the story, got to know about it through the local newspapers, and yet nobody bothered to include the item. Neither in the news reports, nor in the sports section.
Not so long ago, in this newspaper’s sister daily, I had written about the appalling services that PBS offers its viewers when it comes to sports. I had written that local events such as waterpolo were ignored, and that often PBS sports newscasters cover activities that have little or no following in Malta, while ignoring more important events.
Well, the Bolt failure is a case in point.
It can’t be that the people on duty on Sunday night did not know about the event, which was given worldwide coverage long before it happened. If they did not know about it, then they are not fit to be called journalists.
It is just a matter of attitude, or perhaps lack of forward planning, or just maladministration. Having no full-time sports coordinator may be the reason why this happened. What is sure is that PBS should be ashamed. It should analyse what went wrong and seek ways to avoid a repetition. Most of all, it needs an overhaul in the way the sports section functions.
There are too many inconsistencies, too many occasions when viewers do not get the service they expect, and too many times when items of no relevance whatsoever take precedence over others that deserve to be given priority.
All seems to happen at the whim of or likings of the different contributors. If one likes horseracing, then when he’s on duty we are sure to get some news about the sport, even if it is a race taking place in Guatemala. If he likes car racing, then we are sure to get some news of motor-sport, even if it is a tricycle competition in Timbuktu. That’s how things work, it seems.
It is probable that the Bolt flop did spur PBS into some action, as the mistake was not repeated the next day. Or else the journalist on duty on Monday has a better knowledge of what news is all about, because the 8pm sports briefs included a feature on Bolt. The same journalist then reported on the women’s 100-metre final on Tuesday morning’s L-Ghodwa t-Tajba.
But it was too good to be true - three days later, there were no reports on Bolt’s 200-metre victory and record-breaking feat on the Friday morning, the day after it happened.
A TV station that loses the advantage of “immediacy” it has over newspapers cannot be described as being professional. People employed to see that PBS offers a decent service to its viewers must pull up their socks and justify their sizeable package by instilling a sense of duty towards viewers among the station’s journalists and the part-timers in the sports department.
News is all about bolts out of the blue. If PBS continues to miss them, then it should call it a day and become a documentary channel. If they like, they can focus on bird watching.
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