How does a minister prove that he is working hard or that he is up to the job? Well, in Mauritius, one apparently does so by being on the news. The subtext of Mahendra Gowressoo’s declaration to this newspaper, in an interview, is that he does not have to justify anything, the news footage will. If we measure the number of appearances of our various ministers since independence, then the country has elected one hard-working regime after another. Ungrateful and simplistic (for good measure), that we are, we have never really appreciated this simple law of relativity. Perhaps, if Mauritius was a modern day version of Alice in Wonderland, then we could have easily accepted such truisms from the politicians. Alas, for them, it is all too easy to see that the Mauritius Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) functions more like Pravda in the old USSR.

For years, opposition parties have always complained about the use of the state broadcaster before and during elections to serve the government’s agenda. However, once in power, these same media commentariat suddenly discover selective amnesia. Or, in a more sinister scenario, which is more likely, they use the MBC to their advantage, the sycophant journalists more than compliant. The national radio and television becomes the mouthpiece of the government. Every evening, the population tunes in for its daily dose of state propaganda. However, it ought not to be like this in any self-respecting democracy.

Ruffling government feathers

In the last two weeks, an interesting rift broke out in Ireland, between the state broadcaster (RTE) and the minister for Justice. A television programme provoked scathing criticism of the department of justice for paying over the odds while purchasing land for a new prison site. None too pleased, the minister accused the programme of deliberately producing a biased report. He made a complaint to the RTE Authority, the nine-member government appointed board of directors. However, the Authority told him to take his complaints elsewhere, to the Broadcasting Complaints Commission (BCC), which oversees misgivings about “impartiality in news and current affairs”. To put it in simple terms, the Authority had told him to get lost and they are backing their journalists.

However, this was only the latest controversy in the clash between RTE and the government. The latter, which owns the broadcaster, has been in the firing line all summer. First, a series of programmes over the summer about the exorbitant cost of living firmly blamed the government’s ineptitude at tackling spiralling prices. To make matters worse, the programme, Rip-off Republic, heavily borrowed its name from a popular opposition slogan, Rip-off Ireland. Then came the row of the health service. MRSA, overcrowding, patients lying on trolleys in Accident and Emergency, and the partial privatisation of services all conspired to chip at the government’s ratings in the opinion polls. The Late Late Show, a popular Friday night chat show invited the minister to debate the issue. Having initially accepted, she then made a u-turn, leaving the programme short of its main guest. Recriminations poured in from both sides, over the non-appearance.

However, in a few months, a new Broadcasting Bill is to be published and the minister for Justice has hinted that there will be changes to the way RTE is structured. He intends to break up the cosy relationship between the board of directors and management by introducing a group of advisers, who will relay between the two. Within the state broadcaster, this is seen as bullying and a threat to its independence. Earlier, the government had also made veiled threats to RTE. The Communications minister reminded a journalist, who was inquiring into his trip to South America, that ultimately the state decides the fate of the broadcaster’s licence fee, a crucial element of public broadcasting. Throughout the controversy, RTE remained stoic, with even a discernible air of defiance, while the arguments reached a crescendo.

Spineless journalism

Meanwhile, across the Irish sea, in Britain, the battle between the BBC and the Blair government has now gained celebrity status. The claims that the government ‘sexed up’ the Iraq dossier gave rise to the Hutton report and heads fell as the BBC took most of the blame. The cases of both RTE and the BBC highlight the long way that their Mauritian counterpart has to travel for any sort of professional independence. However, both the Irish and British state broadcasters have had their moments when they were too close to their government rulers. RTE, for example, produced some of the most biased reports on the Northern Ireland conflicts. They took government imposed censorship to a level that even the state would not have dreamt of and outdid the British broadcasters in terms of bias. Equally, the Glasgow Media Group, the well-known media research group, demonstrated that among all broadcasters, the BBC was the most pro-war broadcaster before and during the invasion of Iraq.

But the MBC is another beast altogether. Despite all its endeavours, it has remained a dull, unimaginative and crass propaganda machine. From the management to the journalists, everyone is ready to bend backwards to please the government. The irony is that the tax payers are funding the rubbish that passes for news at the station. If the journalists are following ministers on their ribbon cutting pilgrimage, the programmers are doing their best to please all kinds of vested interests in the country. At other times, they are trying not to offend these same religious sensibilities.

It would be naïve to assume that the government is the only party to blame for this situation. At some level, the spineless editorial teams at the station are guilty for espousing such a pro-government agenda. Unfortunately, nearly forty years since Mauritian independence from the United Kingdom, the MBC has such low-self esteem that it cannot assume its independence from the government of the day.