No interviews for MSNBC

Mike is a London based network cameraman who has just spent four days in Malta and Gozo working on the Foley - Mercieca case for MSNBC. He blogs about his stay here:

..The body is slow to respond feeling the lack of sleep, the maybe hour of sleep I snuck in during that 38 hour shift, the 3 flights in a European economy class airline where even I feel incredibly cramped and no coffee machine in the room. So to the shower I go to let the hot water loosen the joints. Fortunately it helps, and then in a blink of an eye it’s off to town and shooting scene setters of Victoria, the town on Gozo where Father Tony lives, a stand-up or piece to camera with Ron Mott the correspondent, back to the stake out for a bit and then to the hotel to set up the video phone for 4 or 5 MSNBC live hits. Lick-i-d-y split we set up the videophone, takes an hour, check it out, order lunch and wait. But at least we had a beautiful view stretching down across a valley out to an amazing 18th century Cathedral, our back drop, and a panoramic view of shave flat mesa’s, green grass, the Mediterranean Sea, the Island of Malta, and some good company. Not a bad way to have a working picnic. Day 3, a much easier day! And all the while, lurking in the background working the phones like Donald Trump can work a room, Sohel the producer, is getting closer and closer of getting the “get”, Father Tony.

Well, we get good knighted from MSNBC due to the fact the quality of a videophone is well, crap, and at night you can’t see a damn thing if it’s not lit like Times Square, so it’s time to pack up, clean up, and head to dinner. By the way great seafood in Gozo. But as we eat there’s an air of uncertainty, the “get” is getting closer to happening. And then it happens, the phone call. Sohel calls to check in with the Bishop here on Gozo that he had finally convinced to see our side of things and he to wants Father Tony to speak clear the air and his name of this nightmare that he has been thrust into. As the phone in the bishops office rings, it’s picked up and a voice, a different voice then that of the Bishops answers, and with the most unnatural of words from an office of the Catholic Church, “Why are you calling? There’s no men of the cloth here only Whores, Whores who sell out to the media!” And with that the phone is slammed down. Upon hearing this Sohel calls back, no answer, repeating it till he receives a call, not from the church but a local investigative reporter. Turns out he had gone to the Citadel where this meeting at the Bishops office was taking place, merely to speak to the Bishop of Gozo afterwards, only to be physically attacked by Father Tony’s layer once the door had had opened and the meeting was done. The police were called, charges threatened but not pressed, the layer that was skeptical at best about agreeing to an interview with an American network now locked in his mindset that it will never happen, the Bishop of Gozo apologizing to us for not being able to make it happen and it appears our time in Malta will be over without getting the “get”, not making it on Nightly News, The Today Show or any of their weekend counterparts. All of this for simply 4 or 5 lives shots for MSNBC...