Training at the BBC Academy
I have just rung the BBC Academy to ask about the nature and cost of the training that a party of political aides from the government of Malta will be receiving there, pointing out that the government of Malta is refusing to answer press questions on the subject and to give the public the explanation owing to it.
I asked whether it is usual for the BBC to train political aides in how to handle journalists, rather than training journalists in how to handle political aides, whether the BBC knows that these are in fact political aides and not journalists or ‘government officials’.
The woman who took my call said that she has received another enquiry from the press in Malta, and asked me to put it down in an email so that it could be put before the relevant people who will check on the information required and formulate a reply. This I have just done.
Note to Kurt Sansone at Times of Malta: communications coordinators in private secretariats are not government officials, still less senior government officials. They are political aides.
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My email to the BBC Academy:
I am a political columnist working for The Malta Independent.
Yesterday, a party of around 12 people who formerly worked in the Malta Labour Party’s propaganda department and who have now been transferred to the state payroll as ‘communications coordinators’ to cabinet ministers in the new Labour government, left Malta on a flight to London.
The Maltese government is refusing to answer questions about it, but one or two members of the party have inadvertently revealed that they are headed to “the BBC for training”. The government is now refusing to answer questions on the nature of that training or the cost to the public purse in Malta.
When the prime minister was asked about this, his response was that these people are being trained “so that they can work with journalists”. This is an inadequate explanation as the individuals in question all worked for years for the Labour Party’s propaganda department, running the party’s television and other media.
There is nothing on the BBC Academy website to indicate that you train political aides in how to handle journalists, but rather the opposite – I gather that you train journalists in how to handle political aides.
Given that the government of Malta is refusing to divulge the nature and cost of the training that its political aides will be receiving at the BBC starting this week, I am asking for clarification from the BBC Academy itself.
Thank you.
Daphne Caruana Galizia
+356 9949 3545
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Your steely determination and tenacity at getting to the bottom of a news story is admirable to say the least.
Thank you for showing the rest of the so-called journalist community how it should be done. I wish they took a little feather out of your cap and grew the ‘cojones’ to go after the perpetrators of injustice and abuse of power before it gets uglier and darker. It would then be too late.
On a different note, SHAME on the Nationalist Party and its ‘election defeat analysis team’ for listing you and your blog as one of the reasons for their electoral trouncing. Unbelievable. They didn’t even have the balls to blame themselves and some of their party officials for their wrong-doings.
[Daphne – They didn’t blame me. They included me in a list of reasons received from people. However, this does not bother me as I know through experience that the average person is completely illogical. The Labour Party rammed me home as a problem and they bought the mantra, lacking the intelligence to see that the only reason Labour did it is because I am a problem to them.]
That is what serious journalists do: they go to the source. Cheap journalists just base their findings on hearsay.
Says a lot about Sansone really, confusing party with public.
I think if Kurt Sansone doesn’t know the difference between a senior government official and a political aide, he needs also to attend a course at the BBC Academy.
In the 1980s, Labour supporters burnt The Times from the outside. Today, they are burning it from within.
I wonder how Kurt Sansone did not make his way as a communications coordinator within some Ministry, thus he would have also made it to London with the bunch.
Labour still need Kurt Sansone at the Times that’s why. Remember Sabrina?
I don’t know about smelling the coffee.
What I know for sure is that when Joseph Muscat is around I smell a rat.
As important as this is, I think another major issue that needs a comprehensive investigation is the Arriva saga. It looks they could be on-course to leave and I think that we may hear by the end of this week.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20131028/local/every-possibility-exists-minister-about-arriva.492258#.Um5XZ_nkubg
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20131028/local/Arriva-could-liquidate-to-escape-from-bus-contract.492225#.Um5XfPnkubh
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20131028/local/ubs-has-not-been-asked-to-take-over-bus-service.492257#.Um5Xj_nkubg
If they are thinking of a voluntary winding-up, then things must be desperate for them to want out that badly.
Kieku kont jien kont innehih dak in-numru tal-mobile tieghek min hemm daphne! ghax dal laburisti komuni joqghodu jcemplulek u jkellmuk baxx
isma minni hi
[Daphne – That’s because you don’t understand the Labour mindset. They don’t make abusive anonymous calls on mobile. Instead they post comments here, because it’s free. And no, this is not a joke.]
Jew b’xejn jew xejn.
See how they fell for “inrahhsu l-kontijiet.”
Apart from being free, an email or abusive comment on a blog is anonymous (or so they think, but that’s another story). An anonymous abusive phone call takes a little more guts to deliver, and the ultimate in bravery, to actually confront someone in the flesh, takes even more guts. these people are usually cowards and will take the route of least resistance.
If you didn’t put the spotlight on certain things, they would go by unnoticed. It is crazy that you have to spoon feed journalists and spell it out to them why some things are simply wrong. That even then they do not follow up on the story is appalling. It is of little comfort that there was at least one other query to the BBC.
Haqqek medalja.
Daphne deserves the Sakharov Prize. I’m dead serious.
Does anyone know how the nomination process works?
Madonna, you are making life difficult for the Labour Party single handedly. Well done.
Daphne, you remind me of Olivia Pope in Scandal. She lets no one thwart the truth.
def ruhi qalbi….dawn riedu holidey Londra shopping u ma ridux ihalsu il-flights u lukanda.
Does their visit coincide with the launching of the ‘sale of Maltese citizenship’?
It was supposed to be held in November. Does anyone know the exact dates?