I’m not a journalist so, who cares about press freedom. Right? Wrong.
Press freedom is not only, or even mainly, about journalists. Press freedom is a public good that all citizens should benefit from in a democracy.
There is no democracy without press freedom but there is no press freedom without democracy. And if there is no democracy or press freedom, all citizens are the losers.
Take, for example, our government’s claim that it wants to bolster the media through legislation that it is presenting in parliament. And, yet, you, the reader, you were refused a voice in the matter as there was no consultation.
The government is saying that it did consult before deciding. This is a consultation that no one except the government knows took place. All those whom the government is saying were consulted are demanding consultations. These include the members of the Istitut tal-Ġurnalisti Maltin, journalists, academics and activists, among others. This list also includes editors from all media houses bar One and PBS.
Many international bodies, including the Council of Europe, are asking the government to launch a proper consultation.
It is very clear that the government’s definition of consultation is different from that of sane and rational people. But what does all this have to do with your rights?
Journalists should be your eyes and ears. They are there to reveal what the government wants to hide from you. You would never have been informed of the government’s many misdeeds and corruption were it not for this and other news outlets publishing stories exposing them.
Journalists risk a lot when they put their hands into the hornet’s nest of government corruption which, many times, it executed together with big business. Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed for doing this. Many journalists are threatened and harassed for doing the same.
You pay for corruption through your taxes. It is in your interest that there exists a vibrant free press ready to risk all to expose corruption. Only then can corruption be effectively fought by a coalition of watchdog journalists and critical citizens.
The legislation that the government is proposing to parliament does not safeguard your rights or the rights of journalists.
The government has gone to great lengths to leave out of its proposed constitutional amendments your right to seek information as a basic component of your right to freedom of expression and your right to freedom of information.
The government refused to declare that the public authorities have an obligation to provide you with real access to information. This is a significant defect in the government’s so-called proposed reform when one considers that, currently, there appears to be a government policy which favours non-disclosure of information held by public authorities rather than disclosure for the sake of transparency and accountability.
Press freedom is a public good that all citizens should benefit from in a democracy- Fr Joe Borg
The rights of journalists are not safeguarded as the most important changes to the law which IĠM fought for are being discarded by the government. The situation has become untenable so much so that IĠM will be resigning from the government’s committee unless the whole process is open to consultation by means of a White Paper, a process which can lead to radical changes.
IĠM’s members were the only members of the government’s committee who had enough spine to take a public position on all of this. It beggars belief that the other members of the committee did not utter a single word. Worse still, they are going along with a second stage of the reform, although the first stage was a shambles. They are sending a questionnaire for consultation only to those persons whom the government’s Department of Information recognises to be journalists.
What a sick joke.
This is the perversion of all that journalism and journalistic freedom is all about. The Council of Europe defines a journalist as “any natural or legal person who regularly or professionally engages in the collection and dissemination of information to the public via any means of mass communication”. This wide-ranging definition was taken over by our courts.
Now Abela committee’s – chaired by a judge to boot – is restricting its consultation only to journalists on a government list.
On the eve of the commemoration of the fifth anniversary of Daphne’s, all this becomes more despicable.
Daphne herself – who was recognised by the international community of journalists and even by our courts as a journalist – would not have received this questionnaire from the DOI.
Daphne deserves better. Journalists deserve better. You deserve better. The country deserves better.