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Karl Schembri
The new chairman of the PBS editorial board, John Camilleri, said he will not overrule the decision taken by the acting chairman before him to keep the historical documentary featuring Dom Mintoff L-Istorja Minn Wara l-Kwinti off TVM.
Asked a week since his appointment for his position on the programme which has fuelled much speculation and hype by its producers for being left out of the new PBS schedule, Camilleri said he would not reverse the decision taken before he was appointed on the editorial board.
“God forbid that I reconsider every decision taken before my appointment,” Camilleri said.
The programme by historian Henry Frendo and lawyer Mark Fenech was taken off in the last winter schedule halfway through and was expected to continue after summer, but the station decided not to broadcast the rest of the series that was to deal with the Mintoff years from 1971 onwards.
Just a couple of days before the schedule was officially announced, PBS chairman Joe Fenech Conti said no decision was yet taken, adding that it was normal to add new programmes halfway through the schedule.
Despite Frendo’s and Fenech’s claims that their programme was censored, PBS sources pointed at technical problems and editorial issues that arose from the first programmes that put the credibility of the series into question, eventually leading the station to stop the series and continue it in winter. Besides some editions arriving late and beyond deadlines to be broadcast, the station’s editorial board found problems of misrepresentation of the Labour party in the seventies.
kschembri@mediatoday.com.mt
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