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News
• 10 November 2002
Said
Pullicino acted on his own
By
Kurt Sansone
Blata l-Bajda – The press conference given by the Broadcasting
Authority Chairman Joseph Said Pullicino on Thursday was called
on his personal initiative and the other BA board members were
only informed of the event after it took place.
Chief Executive Kevin Aquilina confirmed that the BA board members
were not officially informed of the press conference and its contents.
"The members of the Authority were informed of the outcome
later in the day during the Authority’s sitting," Dr
Aquilina told MaltaToday.
In typical BA television production style but very unorthodox
for a press conference, the media event was chaired by Georg Sapiano.
The media savvy lawyer was invited by the Chairman to participate,
conduct the proceedings and act as a contributing moderator.
During the press conference Dr Said Pullicino took PBS to task
for not producing enough in-house current affairs programmes.
The BA chairman’s comments were described by media analysts
as outside the authority’s competence and are widely viewed
as a veiled attack on ‘Where’s Everybody?’.
The private media production company run by Peppi Azzopardi,
Lou Bondi and PJ Vassallo has been at the centre of much controversy
after the Labour Party decided to boycott its programmes, Bondi+
and Xarabank.
During the press conference Dr Said Pullicino also made reference
to what he termed as the ‘monopoly’ in current affairs
enjoyed by Where’s Everybody? on the national broadcaster.
This claim was vehemently denied by Where’s Everybody?, who
in a statement said that with just three hours of airtime for
both programmes they could hardly be said to have a ‘monopoly’.
Meanwhile, when asked whether the issues raised by Dr Said Pullicino
during the press conference were purely his personal views, the
BA chief executive gave this newspaper a very legalistic answer:
"The Authority’s Board took those decisions which the
Chairman indicated during the press conference. Where no formal
decision was taken, the Chairman was expressing his personal views."kurt@maltamag.com
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