It has long been argued that the Broadcasting Authority has exceeded its sell-by date, certainly with regard to its functions and composition. The legal environment in which it operates also requires updating. To say nothing of the way its board often argues when taking cognisance of issues brought to its attention, as the latest scandalous decision ordering PBS not to broadcast questions by journalists amply proves.

According to the Constitution, the board of the Broadcasting Authority should consist of a chairman and a minimum of four members appointed by the president of Malta as advised by the prime minister, who is in duty bound to consult the leader of the opposition.

The members are not meant to officially represent any political party, though in fact that is the case. Now it is not only a matter of the two main parties having their interests well protected when it comes to broadcasting but, given the legal requirements, they also have easy access to advance information of what independent and private TV and radio stations are planning for their next broadcasting schedule. Fair competition at its very best.

But what really makes the Broadcasting Authority a veritable dinosaur of the air waves is the manner in which article 119 of the Constitution is interpreted. And this is what gives rise to the more serious controversies involving the regulator, including the latest one.

The Broadcasting Authority must ensure that, “in such sound and television broadcasting services as may be provided in Malta”, impartiality is preserved in respect of matters of political or industrial controversy or relating to current public policy and that broadcasting facilities and time are fairly apportioned between people belonging to different political parties.

The constitution is clear: any “sound and television broadcasting services as may be provided in Malta”. However, the Broadcasting Act lays down that the impartiality provision only applies to public broadcasting services, as if the others can somehow balance themselves out.

It is on this constitutional clause that the Broadcasting Authority based its decision when it ordered the state broadcaster to stop the transmission once journalists start asking their questions during televised press conferences by politicans that are not medical briefings as such but deal with the situation resulting from the pandemic.

What the Broadcasting Authority effectively decided is that politicians can say whatever they please but the audience is denied the right to hear, viva voce, the same person deal with important topics – whether related or unrelated is really immaterial – raised by journalists.

The members sitting on the Broadcasting Authority board need to realise that journalists do not represent themselves but society. Stopping the media from probing politicians and public officials on topics they deem to be of public interest – such as, for example, whether the prime minister was holidaying in Sicily as Malta was facing a rising wave of COVID-19 cases – amounts to denying the people their sacrosanct right to know.

As if to stress an already bizarre decision, the broadcasting watchdog decreed that while such questions cannot be aired live on TVM and TVM2 they can be carried on digital platforms and other services.

This is a sure sign that the Broadcasting Authority is still living in times gone by.

The authority has got the wrong side of the stick. For, if anything, it was not the journalists who violated the constitutional impartiality proviso but the politicians.

Yet, it does not seem to have the teeth to be able to bite them. Very uncharacteristic of a dinosaur.