Reforming Malta’s Media System

by Joseph Borg and Therese Comodini Cachia

published by Midsea Books, 2023

Midway through this book, a fundamental reference work for anyone urging a meaningful rehabilitation of our debased media system, the authors, uncharacteristically, miss a step.

They remind us of the time, not even a year ago, when The Shift News, supported by the Information and Data Protection Commissioner, requested the publication of the names of the PBS editorial board and their remuneration.

PBS refused, saying that publication was “not in the public interest” because the editorial board did very important work and publicising their names would be a distraction.

Effectively, a public broadcasting service defied a state authority to say that it’s not in the public interest to say who is working on behalf of, yes, the public interest.

We see here is the fetid corruption of our public broadcasting service. File photo

The authors call this “the epitome of arrogance”. No, it’s not. Arrogance is excessive self-importance; even the BBC is sometimes guilty of it. What we see here is the fetid corruption of our public broadcasting service.

It displays the degeneracy of the democratic perverts who run it, a brazen cynicism which proclaims the rights of secrecy over transparency (in the editing of news, of all things!) It gaslights real journalists by insinuating that demanding transparency undermines the public interest.

If this is how the editorial board treats real journalists, you can imagine what is expected of the PBS newsroom. Or, rather, you need imagine nothing. Watch the news bulletin, with its distortions of commission and omission, servility and propaganda, euphemisms and silences.

Despite the misstep, this book is an invaluable guide to the rot. It shows just how broad and deep reforms need to be. The problems affect not this or that institution. It’s a systemic problem of the media landscape.

The book ranges widely – from constitutional issues to the details of legislation and organisation need to guarantee the freedom of information and the press – but it is always focused and concrete. Indeed, when it was published, all the attention was drawn by its 16 major recommendations. But the most lasting value of the book might lie elsewhere.

The recommendations include urging specific constitutional protections, a virtual re-establishment of the Broadcasting Authority and of PBS, and a new funding arrangement for PBS. They show a breadth of international comparison. Borg and Comodini Cachia’s recommendations help us measure the seriousness of any government proposals.

But since it’s unlikely that real reforms will be seriously contemplated in the foreseeable future, the specific recommendations may well need rethinking if and when the time comes.

What will last is the framework and foundation for principled reform that the book offers. They show what is needed for systemic, not piecemeal, reform.

At the core is the proposition that our individual freedom of expression is inseparable from press freedom. If we are not properly informed, we are spouting sock-puppets, assigned opinions by hidden agents. A properly functioning media system is the ecology of freedom of thought and democracy.

A free media system constitutes us as thinking persons, as a public and as a republic. If it constitutes us, then it should be declared in the constitution as a pillar on which our freedom and autonomy rest. Free media, like the natural environment, are a public good.

Next, it follows that the personnel of the media, journalists, need to have the freedom to operate and freedom from threats, corrupt inducements and sanctions.

Freedom of information must not be a dead letter but a living default principle. Sources and whistle blowers must be protected. Intimidation of journalists is to be a serious crime, their protection guaranteed. Laws should guarantee that journalists will be protected from financially crippling sanctions.

With freedom comes responsibility but any control of journalists should be founded on their autonomy. Legal control should be minimal. The emphasis should be on self-regulation and a strong code of ethics, governed by an autonomous Press Complaints Commission.

Autonomy from politicians should also characterise the Broadcasting Authority, whose remit should be combined with that of the communications authority. PBS should be a public servant, not a ruling party slave, governed by an autonomous public foundation.

The model is that of Sweden and, perhaps, this is where the authors for once did not think broadly enough. Borg and Comodini Cachia write about public goods, public service and the public interest – in a country where the judiciary has often passed skewed judgement on what constitutes a stake in the public interest by using the criteria of private law. The very concept of “public” needs promotion and strengthening.

Maybe the reform of our media system needs us to take a further leaf out of Sweden’s book. Its constitution begins by declaring that all sovereign power rests in “public power”.