Several historical situations made the Church suspicious of the media.
The invention of printing in the 15th century, for example, established the primacy of the written word over the spoken one. It created the cultural infrastructure which facilitated the spread of Protestantism with its belief in ‘sola scriptura’ and the private interpretation of the Bible. It pushed forward the process of secularisation by making it easier to create a pluralised market of ideas that could not be controlled by the Church.
Printing started dismantling the old world where the Church reigned supreme and, despite its resistance, its control of society started to crumble. The resistance of the Church in Malta, for example, resulted in a 300-year delay for the permanent introduction of printing.
The Church was also averse to freedom of the press. But when these innovations came about, it fervently utilised them, publishing several militant periodicals like, for example, Brighella and Il Trionfo della Religione, both edited by priests.
This ‘love you not’ followed by a ‘love you’ attitude still characterises the attitude of the Church, even in Malta. There is fear that the media have an ongoing campaign to undermine the credibility of the Church and render it irrelevant.
This is coupled with the eagerness to grasp the possibilities evidenced through the Church’s robust presence in our media system.
Il-Leħen, published by the Catholic Action since 1928, is the oldest extant newspaper in Malta. It is directed to the core Catholic readership. The monthly magazine Flimkien, published by the parish priests, has just been re-branded to make it – hopefully – more appealing to younger audiences.
RTK, set up in 1992, was morphed into 103 Malta’s Heart, another attempt by the Church media to reach a younger audience. Up till I served there in November 2021, only limited success was registered. Such transitions take a long time and meagre publicity budgets make such transitions longer.
The MSSP-owned Ċentru Animazzjoni Missjunarja produces several television programmes on different stations.
The news portal Newsbook, which, on October 1, celebrates its 10th anniversary, is the most popular. Between 2017 and 2021 I served as a full-time – though voluntary – chairperson of its editorial board. Thanks to the small but extremely dedicated editorial and journalistic staff, between 2019 and 2021 Newsbook registered an increase of 58 per cent of users, 50 per cent of sessions and 86 per cent of pageviews. I trust the upward trajectory is still being registered.
More satisfying than the increase in audience was the fact that, while up to 2016 Newsbook’s most read stories were soft news/lifestyle/human interest, it slowly shifted to more investigative, hard news stories. Rarely did so few do so much with so little. I am eternally grateful.
What future for the vision and structures of the Church media?
Church media should resist the temptation to emulate party media and become the public relations arm of the institution. In the post-synodal document Il-Wiċċ Digitali tal-Mulej (2009), the Archdiocese of Malta obliged itself not to fall into this trap.
The Church’s presence in our media system is rich but coordination between the different initiatives is – at best – very poor- Fr Joe Borg
“The media of the Church should not be the means to amplify or reflect the power of the institution.
“The Church should work so that its media organisations are of service to the human person and only after that serve the needs of the institution” (para 13).
This commitment echoes that outlined in the Vatican document ‘A New Dawn’ (1992). According to Communio et Progressio (1971), one of the Church’s best media documents, the Church’s media should be a forum for legitimate pluralism within the Church (cf para 116 and 141). I say mea culpa for not doing this anywhere enough when I was working there.
It is unfortunate that 23 years after the Archdiocese of Malta published the above-mentioned media policy document we are still without a holistic and coordinated communication strategy between the two dioceses.
This is essential for the Church to manage the challenges and possibilities presented by the current polarised and pluralised media environment.
The Church’s presence in our media system is rich but coordination between the different initiatives is – at best – very poor.
Through personal failed attempts to coordinate, I know how difficult this is but more political will is needed to get it done.
It is sad that the archdiocese has repetitively reneged on several commitments made in official documents since the Diocesan Synod of the early 2000s to set up a collegial structure responsible for the designing and execution of a media strategy. Worse still, where this existed, it was dismantled.
As an eternal optimist, I hope that the very difficult objective of coordination will one day be reached.
I hope that instead of a ‘love you/love you not’ attitude, the Church would move towards a more discerning use and presence in our media system.