The Times leader (May 25) suggests that the new national broadcasting policy announced by the government "may contravene the spirit if not the letter of the Constitution and of the Broadcasting Act". The reason for this rather extreme claim is that the newly founded editorial board is being appointed by the government and not, as the leader suggests, by the Broadcasting Authority.
The Constitution (Art. 119) is explicit in giving the Broadcasting Authority a regulatory function: "It shall be the function of the Broadcasting Authority to ensure that, as far as possible, in such sound and television broadcasting services as may be provided in Malta, due 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 persons belonging to different political parties".
The Broadcasting Authority is responsible to regulate all sound and television broadcasting services, not merely the state owned. True enough, the public broadcaster probably has a greater responsibility to ensure impartiality as it is a priori suspected of toeing the government party's line. Also true enough, the Broadcasting Authority is likely to scrutinise more closely the public broadcaster's strict adherence to the rule book.
This does not make the role of an editorial board redundant. The functions of the editorial board (spelt out in the new broadcasting policy available on www.miti.gov.mt) are to develop the station's policy on what is and is not of news value and what style the station should develop and adopt. The policy explicitly spells out that in matters of news the editorial board is answerable to no one: neither to the government that appoints it nor to the board of directors that pays it. If the editorial board adopts a policy which is deemed partial and in breach of the Constitution or of accepted norms of fairness, the Broadcasting Authority retains its right to intervene.
Hopefully, there will be less need for the authority to intervene. We hope the editorial board will help the station find the right balance between needing to be fair and impartial and the (so far altogether missing) mission to be inquisitive, provocative and adopting a healthy dose of courage and reducing its current overdose of deference.
If, as the leader suggests, the authority were to appoint the editorial board, it (the authority) would then be unable to review decisions of the editorial board. The authority's role is to investigate, and enforce its judgments, on complaints by third parties on PBS's behaviour. The editorial board is therefore an internal organ of PBS that remains subject to the authority's review.
The reference in the broadcasting policy to the minister responsible for broadcasting's role in interacting with the station as far as content of its broadcasting is concerned does not refer to news content but is limited to the public service content (cultural and educational programmes) that is funded directly by the government. This is not an opening of a new line in the station's chain of command. On the contrary, it is explicitly limiting the government's access to PBS specifically to programmes it funds and explicitly declaring that there is no relationship whatsoever between PBS and the government in matters pertaining to the coverage of local news.
Anyone who is familiar with the way things worked, and more often than not, were perceived to work, at PBS will know that this is an unprecedented step forward.
Incidentally, for information, the minister responsible for broadcasting is, according to the Broadcasting Act, the minister who at any time is designated as minister for culture (Minister Francis Zammit Dimech at present) and not the minister designated as responsible for PBS (Minister Austin Gatt).
The fact that the members of the board are appointed by the government does not automatically make them answerable to it. Judges are appointed by the government but their autonomy is sacrosanct. Fundamentally it boils down to the choice being made. We think Fr Joe Borg, Dr Mary Anne Lauri and Professor Dominic Fenech should be given a chance, even by the Labour Party, which has been too quick in rubbishing them as "loyal party activists appointed to run PBS as a PN structure to serve the party and not as a public broadcasting system" (Evarist Bartolo: Killing public broadcasting, The Times, May 25).
I think the spirit of the MLP's comments on the reforms at PBS should persuade the leader writer why the government focused its efforts to reform broadcasting at PBS first and left the Broadcasting Authority's role intact, at least for the moment. Changing the Broadcasting Authority will require constitutional changes and, therefore, cross-party consensus. In this area, more than any other, even wishing for such a consensus is the exclusive remit of hopeless romantics.
One thing at a time: We first wanted to reform our national broadcaster, which is the fiercest subject of inter-party controversy in Malta's broadcasting scene. Our sincerest desire is that the national broadcaster becomes less of a controversy and more of "a common home where we all feel welcome," as Mr Bartolo wishes for, as mush as the next man or woman.
Once that happens, it should be easier for parties to agree on how our broadcasting regulator should be changed.
The broadcasting question has been prominent in our politics for some 40 years now. It would have been foolish to aspire to solve it in one fell swoop. We think this is a good start.