The expression ‘the fog of war’ is often used when military conflicts prevail and one begins to find it impossible to ferret out or come up with any objective understanding of what might be really going on. This is often the end product of the confusion that one comes across in both battlefields and communications; in the majority of cases at the same time

Thank God, while in Malta we never run short of scandals, controversies and polemics, we have not had anything to do directly with war for decades.

But for some unknown reason, when making an effort to sit through a news bulletin of TVM, I somehow feel as if I am trying to pick my way through the above-mentioned fog of war. In spite of the fact that as mentioned, our country is in no way engaged in any conflict.

Slick as the production values of the news bulletins on TVM might be, the station is increasingly becoming like a strange brew between a Berlusconi TV station that thrives on gossip, sensation and speculation as well as a Communist-era TV station when everything government says and does is reported ad nauseam.

To the extent that nowadays even parliamentary assistants (and not only ministers and parliamentary secretaries) are being offered sound bites, while in the Opposition’s case the only way we can make it to the TVM news bulletins is by organising a media conference.

Otherwise, any statement that we might issue invariably ends up binned in the majority of cases.

On other occasions government replies to statements made by the Opposition are often given undue weighting.

The other week I had my fair sampling of how TVM rules and operates.

Whenever I normally hold a media conference as party Shadow Spokesperson for the Environment it is customary for the media present to pose a number of questions as they are invariably entitled to do.

For some reason or other, one particular TVM news reporter, who worked for a number of years as PRO of one of the ministers that I shadow, tends to pose questions that sound more like the probing questions of someone shoring up the minister in question than clarifying matters in the public interest.

To my surprise, when I recently held a media conference to list 16 major shortcomings in the environmental, sustainable development and climate sectors, none of the government-leaning media members present bothered to field any questions – including the journalist in question.

I told somebody jokingly. “I will bet anything that if the PN is so badly lost for words it will try to deflect attention from the main thrust of the press conference by coming up with something bizarre and surreal.”

And that is exactly what it did.

Cleverly bypassing the various pointed accusations that I made against the Gonzi administration in the environmental sector, the PN merely hit back by claiming that Joseph Muscat must have made a very insensitive and wrong choice when he asked me to Shadow the Environment since I happened to have formed part of a former administration that did not exactly have a perfect record in this sector.

TVM went one further. Misquoting and distorting the PN media release further, it gave as much importance to the PN counter-reply almost as much as it did to my own media conference statement. So much so that a friend of mine, who happens to be well-versed in journalism, found the TVM coverage of my speech so unintelligible that he asked me: “What was the media conference all about?”

I had made it clear a priori that the media conference had been solely intended to list a number of items and issues whereby the PN failed to honour certain Green pledges and commitments that should have already been in place by the time of the parliamentary summer recess.

In the PN counter-statement – as aired – that was given almost main item prominence, it was reported that during my term of office as Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment, I had performed horrendously.

I never laid any claims to perfection in whatever portfolio I might have held but it so happens that I never held office in the environmental sector.

When I started off as a parliamentary secretary I had served in the Office of the Prime Minister where the environment was not part of my brief.

TVM, as government lap dog, did not even have the decency to try and verify whether it was getting its facts right!

The PL quite rightly lodged an immediate protest to both Natalino Fenech – the man responsible for the dismal state TVM happens to be in – as well as to the Broadcasting Authority.

The day after, the correction was carried.

But rather than stating that it was incorrect in its claim, TVM merely stated that according to the PL, I was not responsible for the environment under a former PL government. As if this was strictly the Partit Laburista’s own opinion, rather than a matter of fact statement.

Last week the PL issued two statements on the Libyan crisis.

It condemned the unwarranted and unjustified attack on the Maltese registered vessel that was expected to carry people to Malta being evicted from Libya on humanitarian grounds to free themselves from the conflict zones.

Unless I was inattentive, this statement did not hold any news value for the Natalino Fenech clan.

The same happened when the PL gave its reaction to the successful victory that the Transitional National Council made earlier last week in taking command of Libya.

Unless I might have ‘dozed off’ I heard the government statement in its near entirety while the PL official statement was nowhere to be seen, heard or found.

Although last Sunday TVM could have been interpreted as having tried to make amends, its coverage of Joseph Muscat’s visit to the Civil Protection Unit helping out in the Libyan humanitarian aid was inevitable since it could ill afford to ignore such an event by the Opposition Leader.

But this coverage in no way mitigates its otherwise ghastly and lopsided treatment meted out to the PL in recent years.

This is expected to gain in added momentum if there is any truth that Bondi+ will evolve into two weekly programmes of 30 minutes each as reported in other sections of the media.

The PN-leaning media have been much fairer to us in the past months, even when reporting statements issued by our party.

I have nothing against those PN party journalists who have a job to do to toe the party line on such matters. But TVM is a different kettle of fish, primarily since it happens to be state funded and publicly owned.

What I dislike most about the way TVM is run is that although there are some very valid people in its newsroom, there is a running vicious streak that can be only attributed to one particular person in particular, since it seems to be very much symptomatic of the same manner in which he/she used to write when still a staffer with a leading local daily.

The way certain people are targeted – even Facebook comments are carried in the TVM news as if they were ‘breaking news’ items – merely goes on to prove how the waves of disinformation and media distortion that one normally associates with goings on in conflict zones like Libya and other parts of North Africa and the Middle East have ended up swamping the truth on our own state broadcasting station.

I suggest that the person in question who from what I have been told has been seeking pastures new – whether over and above his present post or not still has to be determined – should consider applying as spokesperson for certain military organisations.

You may ask: Why?

Because he would have been the ideal person to give the stock reply that certain military spokespersons have given over the years when ending empty-handed – that capturing bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi was not that important so long as they had not been captured yet.

[email protected]

www.leobrincat.com

Leo Brincat is the Shadow Minister for the Environment, Sustainable Development & Climate Change