RTK 103 is a Church-owned radio station. Andrew Azzopardi hosts one of its weekly shows. And Norman Lowell is a convicted racist.
Those three things are facts, plain and simple.
What is less black-and-white is the Broadcasting Authority’s interpretation of its remit to ensure fair radio and TV shows.
The broadcasting regulator last week fined RTK because Azzopardi had the temerity to say Lowell, “a xenophobe and a racist”, would never be given airtime on his show.
“He can tie himself to the door, I won’t allow him on. But could you [the BA] tell me I’m not allowed to do that, and charge me before its board?” Azzopardi asked the BA’s CEO.
Somewhat ironically, it did just that, before Azzopardi even had the opportunity to deny Lowell a guest slot.
Azzopardi’s insistence that he would not have Lowell on his show constituted unfair or unjust treatment of the right-winger (and a Nazi sympathiser), the board ruled.
Little did it matter to the BA board that Azzopardi is not part of RTK’s editorial team. Nor was it relevant that the complaint was based on something Azzopardi said he would do, rather than something he did.
To take the BA decision to its logical conclusion, every radio, TV and social media broadcaster in Malta must be willing to invite everyone onto its shows. Deciding against giving somebody time on air is to subject them to ‘unjust or unfair’ treatment.
That is ridiculous, and the BA knows that. What it really wants is for people like Azzopardi to not say what they intend to do out aloud.
“The presenter could have made his argument without naming anyone in particular,” the BA said in its ruling, seemingly unaware of how hypocritical that advice rings.
To heap irony upon irony, the BA has in the past fined broadcasters who gave Lowell a voice. As Aditus and the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation rightly noted, this means that broadcasters are damned if they invite such guests on, and damned if they don’t.
The board’s odd decision also raises a question: is Azzopardi now free to decide whether or not to invite Lowell onto his show, or will the BA automatically fine him if he does not?
The BA board may argue that its hands are tied by the parameters of the 30-plus year-old Broadcasting Act. In fact, it cited a proviso within article 35 of that law to justify its decision to fine RTK.
That line of defence has some merit: Times of Malta has spent the past 15 years calling for the Broadcasting Act to be reformed for good reason. If the law was outdated in 2009, now it is a legislative fossil.
Still, it is perplexing to see the BA board come down so strongly on RTK for such a minor issue, given the myriad – and far more pressing – problems Malta’s broadcasting currently faces.
Malta’s public broadcaster, which has faced accusations of political bias for years, has effectively been turned into a current affairs eunuch, castrated of its news content save for the odd interview coming from favoured quarters.
The country’s two largest private stations are politically owned and are allowed to operate as propaganda machines in broad daylight, in part because the political parties that own them also control the regulator.
The BA board’s five members are selected by the prime minister and opposition leader. Is it all that surprising that they come down like a hammer on the proverbial splinter, while ignoring the wooden beams in the eyes of their political sponsors?