Labour right and wrong about XARABANK

Labour should not have accepted in the first place to participate in yesterday's Deputy Leader debate on Xarabank.

Now that for all intents and purpose we are already in a fully fledged election campaign such debates should form part of the Broadcasting Authority schedule of election campaign political programmes..

Xarabank and TVM yesterday showed that they are not acting in the interests of professional journalism in hosting such a debate but they are serving the interest of the PN.

Any professional journalist would agree that the man of the week was rebel MP Franco Debono.   He is the person who brought down the government by voting against his own party in parliament leading to failure of  government's Budget 2013 proposals.

Journalists should have been chasing Franco not the other way round.   But clearly the interest of the PN is to brand Franco Debono irrelevant.   Xarabank rather than pursue the principles of professional journalism opted to pursue the interest of the PN.

The debate between the Deputy Leaders ought to come in its due time as part of the Broadcasting Authority schedule during the election campaign.   But this week it was Franco's week.   Next week Franco may be history but this week he should be a hot topic for true journalists to try to get to the bottom of how it came to be that a person stands for his principles even if in the process he has to burn away all political ambitions.

Yet once Labour decided to participate it did not serve their image and their election prospects by doing the charade as they did yesterday.     Once they agreed to participate they should have gone through with it and surely  Dr. Anglu Farrugia would have been able to point out to the Xarabank presenter that his choice of topics for debate is meant to serve the PN not good journalism.

It is heartening that PL have now agreed to participate in the second attempt for the Deputy Leader debate on Xarabank.

Xarabank and Peppi Azzopardi should be ashamed of themselves for hosting such a debate rather than offering the limelight to Franco Debono whose decision in parliament this week has made political history which could change the way politics is done in this nation.