Unless you’ve been hidden away under a rock for the past week, Neil Agius‘ broke the world record for the longest non-stop open water swim, clocking in some 130km in 53 hours. However, despite the widespread coverage on social media platforms, questions have been raised about the lack of coverage on local television channels.
“Shameful. Disgrace. Disappointed.”
Those are just some of the adjectives used by people commenting on a post by Moira Palmier, founder of popular local discussion group The Salott, discussing this very topic. While we mentioned it briefly in our own coverage, the post received plenty of comments echoing Palmier’s thoughts.
“Would have preferred live feeds during the world breaking record last night instead of articles later”, she wrote. “Was truly surprised how not one local station showed this live on TV. Not all have access to Internet. We streamed through Lovin Malta and then TVM 2”.
She expanded on her point, saying that apart from the world record achievement, there’s also a campaign behind all of this, one centred around sustainability and cleaning up our seas and oceans. Needless to say, the majority of users are fully in agreement.
Some lamented the fact that it was one of the few occasions Malta truly had something to be proud of, others questioning why neither the environment minister nor the sports minister were present to congratulate Neil in person. And without wanting to get into it too much, many felt that the lack of a political agenda influenced the decision to not cover the event live.
Do you think local TV stations could have done more to cover the event?
