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Matthew Vella
Anything but a fluorescent bib. Michael Holman, the journalist from the Times of London covering CHOGM, yesterday was forcefully removed from the bus carrying a media pool to a press conference by Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi after he refused to don the bib that had to be worn by all journalists covering the event.
Officials from the Department of Information yesterday struggled with Holman as he refused to wear his bib, with police officers intervening to prevent the British journalist from boarding the bus.
Holman was left standing at the platform outside the media centre in St Julians, missing out on a gruelling hour of travelling and security checkpoints before reaching the Radisson Golden Sands hotel where Commonwealth heads of government are having their retreat.
Incidentally, Holman penned a witty and highly irreverent review of the CHOGM opening ceremony on yesterday’s London Times, describing the dance spectacle put on by Lou Bondì’s entertainment company as “a selection of manoeuvres that seemed to have been devised by the ministry of funny walks”.
He asked if the CHOGM opening dance may have been “a graphic depiction of journalists’ battle to overcome the draconian security precautions in Malta” and in less than 24 hours he experienced it first hand.
Holman expressed the puzzlement of the audience who did not benefit of the ‘Notes for Radio and TV Commentators’ to understand what the dance was supposed to mean.
“Was it an artistic denunciation of torture in Iraq? Perhaps it was a graphic depiction of journalists’ battle to overcome the draconian security precautions in Malta? Or was it a celebration of the liberation of the human spirit?”
mvella@mediatoday.com.mt
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