PBS, the national broadcasting station, was in the news for the wrong reasons again a few days ago.
Already under fire for the way it covers the political arena, with the Opposition getting the short end of the stick while the government’s work is pumped up exponentially, PBS came under the spotlight for a programme in which a book about Nazism was glorified.
In the programme, Hajjitna Ktieb, PBS gave promotion to the book “Mein Fuhrer Adolf Hitler, l-istorja u l-bijografija”, written by Ronald Bugeja, without any hint of critical appraisal. PEN, an association of writers, said the presenter, John Demanuele, presented the book without posing any critical questions about the dangerous revisionism of the book, which glorifies and justifies Hitler, the Nazi Movement and ideology, and the actions of the civil and military Nazi administration in Germany in the 20th century.
Thankfully, there was an immediate condemnation from all quarters for the way PBS tackled the matter. The minister responsible for PBS, Owen Bonnici, said there should be no place for this type of content on any medium, while the National Book Council distanced itself from the publication, saying it had not provided any assistance and saying that the book was not included in the list of potential winners of the National Book Prize for books published in 2022.
TVM itself said that it has launched an investigation to see how the promotion of the book escaped the “quality control” that should be exercised on such programmes, and said that once the investigation is concluded, measures will be applied including the possible inclusion of “contractual consequences and disciplinary steps” that could be taken if such a situation had to come up again. The programme producer and presenter, John Demanuele, also issued an apology.
The promotion of such a book, however, should never have made it on the national airwaves, and the station is doing the right thing to investigate how this came to be. It is hoped that the results of the investigation are made public, and that PBS explains what went wrong. PBS should also publish the measures that it intends to introduce to make it clear that a repetition will not be tolerated, and what would happen if it does.
The controversy regarding this book about Nazism coincided with the publication of a book which also made the headlines in the last week or so – the one by Repubblika president Robert Aquilina, “Pilatus – A laundromat bank in Europe”. Given the way PBS acts as a shield against anything which is critical to the government’s operations, it was actually a surprise to see some coverage of the launch on the national station.
It would be interesting to know if the producers of the programme which promoted the book about Nazism intend to invite Aquilina to talk about his publication. But that, perhaps, would be too much for PBS, no?