National broadcasting: Back to square one

The promised spring has not materialised. A five-page letter sent to Austin Gatt by Austin Sammut, a strong PN supporter, when he was chairman of Public Broadcasting Services, has been kept a 'state secret', whereas a letter sent to the board of directors of the Malta International Airport was conveniently sent to a reporter of The Times for publication.

In his letter, Dr Sammut told the minister to keep his hands off PBS, whereupon the chairman was immediately removed and replaced by Michael Mallia. In his letter to MIA, Dr Gatt took exception to the manner in which the company planned to allocate premises for a lucrative franchise at the airport.

The new PBS chairman visits the President of the Republic and the public is informed by the new chairman that a new mentality is required (he does not say by whom), and that he is meeting all employees individually. Notwithstanding the fact that PBS has a two-stream revenue system, it remains in the red.

The two streams are the licence fees and the advertising revenue. It is understood that structural reforms at the station have been under discussion for about 15 years under at least five different chairmen and as many government ministers. This would really make an interesting business case study or the subject of a thesis for one of our bright university students. As title I would suggest 'Fast track structural reforms at PBS'.

The President reminded the chairman that his duty was to ensure that PBS was not partisan and that it had to be run in an objective and balanced manner to be seen as a national credible institution of our entrenched democratic values. It was expected of the President to make such comments as he is seen as the defender of the Constitution. Therefore, he is duty bound to make all efforts to ensure that the constitutional provisions are adhered to.

Only time will tell what impact the President's words will have on PBS. It is an open secret that the office of the prime minister and government ministers exert very punitive pressure on the PBS newsroom to ensure maximum exposure of government policies and of the ministers' work. This is Maltese democracy in 2003.

One of the first chapters closed in the negotiations between the EU and Malta related to the audio-visual sectors and broadcasting. There were no derogations or special concessions agreed upon.

The EU directives are very clear about the role of public broadcasting and it is not clear why the Nationalist government has not taken any serious steps to implement the directives on broadcasting. It does not seem that the EU representative has made any submissions in this regard. But so long as the situation favours the party in government, all remains silent and dormant.

Following the publication of my media statement dated August 20, when the Labour Party announced that it would be taking full part in programmes aired on the local broadcasting stations, the Press Club issued a very detailed statement. It called for a new chapter in relations and stated: "The Labour Party's gesture should not be the only one. Others need to carry more responsibility, including any government, all the political parties, all the media owners, every journalist, and the Broadcasting Authority. New practices also need to be introduced."

The Press Club also called on media owners to give the journalists they employ every opportunity to do their duty according to journalistic freedom, in full respect of journalism ethics; to show confidence in their journalism attributes and to give them every opportunity to show their capabilities, and to give space also to beliefs that do not agree with their editorial policy.

This is something that is very lacking at PBS, where current affairs and discussion programmes have been farmed out to a private partnership.

This is done without any calls for tenders or a public call for an expression of interest from interested parties. The agreements entered into by PBS on farmed out programmes have never been published or brought to the scrutiny of parliament's public accounts committee.

What the establishment keeps telling us is that PBS continues to make losses. It is the taxpayer who has to make good for these losses. In the meantime, several private media companies/partnerships continue to make profits for themselves. At the same time, PBS employees are underutilised and made to feel inferior to outside broadcasters.

It is not the case to ask where's everybody. It is more pertinent to ask: where do we stand now? The answer is, back to square one. Malta: a democracy without national broadcasting. Rewind, please.