TVM has been hijacked by PL, PN claims

Updated 6.08pm

Data tabled in parliament showing that TVM broadcast 532 clips featuring government representatives but only 66 clips of their PN counterparts in one year shows that public broadcasting has been hijacked by the government, the PN claimed on Thursday. 

Answering a PQ by PN's Michael Piccinino, Culture Minister Malcolm Paul Agius Galea said that between June 1 2925 and May 31 of this year, 532 sound-on-tape (SOTs) of government members were broadcast on PBS news bulletins. 

"The absolute majority of these were linked to the performance of ministerial functions, including announcements of policies, services, schemes, projects, and other initiatives, and not to activities of a partisan nature.

"I have also been informed that the PBS rarely includes SOTs taken during political activities or conferences organised by the Labour Party. In fact, during the same period, two SOTs taken in this context were broadcast," the minister said.

During the same period, he added, 66 SOTs from PN members were broadcast. 

In a statement on Thursday, the PN "strongly condemned the shameful state to which the Labour government has brought the media in our country, particularly public broadcasting, which is supposed to serve the entire people but has today been reduced to yet another propaganda tool of the government".

TVM, it said, was no longer acting as a public broadcaster but as an extension of the government’s communications machine.

"Instead of informing, it selects. Instead of balancing, it conceals. Instead of giving the full picture, it paints only one reality: the one that suits the Labour Party in government."

This was a serious abuse of state institution, the PN insisted.

"It is an abuse of public funds, and it is an insult to the intelligence of every citizen who pays for an impartial public broadcaster but is instead given Super One 2."

The PN referred to a Broadcasting Authority recent intervention in relation to "the unbalanced way" in which TVM was treating the presence of the government and the Opposition in news bulletins.

This is an absolute imbalance which exposes how TVM is entirely manipulated by the government, which has reduced it to nothing more than its own noticeboard, it said.

Robert Abela’s government has not strengthened media freedom, the party said, adding that, on the contrary, it has continued to entrench a culture in which the independent media is muzzled, uncomfortable questions are left unanswered, public information is kept hidden, and public broadcasting is used as a shield for the Labour government instead of holding it to account.

However, in a statement on Thursday evening, the PL accused the PN of "hindering the government's performance by blocking information", adding the Opposition "has no idea how the national broadcaster reports the news". 

"It is universally understood that a national broadcaster reports the launch ofGovernment policies, the inauguration of projects, and the implementation ofministerial responsibilities that a democratically elected Government performson a daily basis. Reporting is factual and non‑partisan in TVM’s news bulletins," the PL said.

"At the same time, it also reports the reactions, criticism, or political partyproposals, which naturally are less frequent."