Calling the kettle black

Recently, the Socialist Italian MEP Lilli Gruber highlighted what she deemed to be Malta's "anomalous" media situation. Ms Gruber did this through a parliamentary question in the European Parliament, a move praised by Arnold Cassola and Alternattiva Demokratika which featured the whole issue on their website prominently. However, Ms Gruber would do well to take note of the media in her own country rather then looking at the Maltese media.

Italy has six major TV channels, three Mediaset channels and three Rai channels. Silvio Berlusconi is the owner of Mediaset and hence he has direct control over those three channels, namely Rete 4, Italia 1 and Canale 5. As Prime Minister, however, he also has an indirect controlling hand over the three Rai channels namely Rai Uno, Rai Due and Rai Tre.

This means Mr Berlusconi is able to control around 90 per cent of the Italian media. The situation in Italy is so unique that in 2003 Reporters Sans Frontieres ranked Italy among the lowest western countries in terms of press freedom. On the other hand, in Malta, in the worst case scenario, any government would be able to control two out of four local channels.

The situation in Malta is such that the major opposition party will always have a strong voice on the Maltese media since both major parties have their own media machine. This guarantees total freedom in the Maltese media since with both parties having their own media, neither party can stop the other party from voicing its opinion.

The last European Parliament elections proved once and for all that the Maltese press is indeed free. A private station gave all the independents more than their fair chance to air their views and the national TV station, TVM, gave everybody his due time. Ms Gruber would do well to worry about her own country rather than doing somebody else's job!