<B>By Deepa BHOOKHUN</B>

Bijaye Madhou, Director of the Mauritius Broadcasting Corporation (MBC), is a lovely man and I have a lot of time for him. But as much as I like him, I couldn?t help but sneer when I read his statement published in yesterday?s l?express that ?our journalists are well-trained and work in an objective fashion.? He also felt the need to stress the fact that he thought, ?we are professionals.?

Maybe that?s why on Monday when Attorney General Rama Valayden offered his resignation to the prime minister (PM), the MBC newsroom didn?t deem the matter important enough to mention. Not a word was said on an event that had about half the country enthralled as they waited to hear whether the prime minister had reacted to Valayden?s offer of resignation.

The other half who probably don?t listen to private radios and had thus no way of knowing what had happened on Monday, watched the news at 19.30 and were none the wiser after having been subjected to a news bulletin prepared by the ?well-trained?, ?objective? and ?professional? journalists of the MBC.

At about eight at night, Rama Valayden announced that he had spoken to the prime minister and that as a result of this conversation he had decided to take back his offer of resignation.

If as a general rule you don?t listen to private radios and you don?t read newspapers, by Tuesday morning, you would still be completely oblivious to what has happened. If you were lucky, you would have caught up at work while you gossip with your workmates.

Let?s assume you?re not part of the lucky ones and your colleagues don?t talk to you or even that you don?t work. I can imagine your surprise when while watching the MBC news bulletin on Tuesday, you hear the PM talk about Subutex and Sada Curpen and then you learn that ?Rama Valayden sent his letter?.

You would hear this of course because coverage of parliament and of every word uttered by the prime minister is deemed to be of the utmost importance to the professional and objective people of the MBC.

But in case you wondered ?what letter? when you heard the PM mention the word, I hope you didn?t get your hopes up and expect the MBC to explain. What would they have said anyway? Sorry we forgot to tell you this but yesterday, Rama Valayden offered to resign and then changed his mind?

If that?s the kind of respect the MBC has for their 350,000 paying customers, I wonder what kind of news coverage we?d get if they didn?t think that ?the public is here to judge us? as the DG said, in a tone that?s meant to presume that the ?judgment? was bound to be positive.

Well, have I got news for my friend Mr Madhou! I think the judgment has been passed already and three words that would definitely be missing in that verdict would be ?objective?, ?professional? and ?well-trained?.

But I guess they don?t give a damn.