Labour threatens legal action over PBS

The Labour Party was prepared to take legal action to safeguard the interests of TVM's viewers and ensure that Public Broadcasting Services (PBS), the state broadcaster, presented a balanced view of things, general secretary Jason Micallef said yesterday.

The party was extremely worried about the way things were going at PBS and about the station's employees who, Mr Micallef claimed, were demoralised.

Mr Micallef was addressing a press conference after a meeting with the chairman and chief executive of the Broadcasting Authority. It was unacceptable, Mr Micallef said, that in one schedule after another, PBS journalists were prevented from producing current affairs programmes. He questioned why such programmes always ended up in the hands of the same company.

The party, he said, believed PBS journalists were capable of producing such programmes.

"It is unacceptable and does not make sense that, in the run-up to an election, current affairs programmes are being manipulated blatantly in favour of the Nationalist Party and against the Labour Party," he said.

Mr Micallef also queried why the station's editorial board remained without a chairman, after John Camilleri resigned.

Mr Camilleri had stepped down in August in protest because he felt insulted that the board of directors had overruled his board's decisions on the winter schedule and blatantly ignored the Public Statement of Intent.

Mr Micallef thanked the authority for understanding its concerns and said his party had complete faith in the station's employees - if elected it would give them space to produce quality programmes.

Labour spokesman on state broadcasting, Helena Dalli also spoke of the situation at PBS.

Without mentioning names, she asked how somebody could present a current affairs programme on PBS and pretend to be balanced and impartial, and then express strong views against the Labour Party in newspaper articles.