Exaggeration is a damning abnormality of journalism but not the only one. Bias is unthinkably worse.

As politicians scatter to seduce voters into their camp, nowhere is crass prejudice more obvious than in large swathes of the Maltese media.

That this is the setting, again, for this year's general election takes no one by surprise. Huge chunks of newspapers and TV stations - maybe not radio - remain directly run by politicians. As the campaign trundles on, voters have yet to decide what and who to believe - even though most will have made up their minds six months ago. There is one encouraging factor. The more one gauges the national mood the more one realises people seem to want change. I don't necessarily mean in administrations but certainly in the way their lives are governed.

I have no idea whether the island's 300,000 voters plan to wave a final goodbye to the party that, for better or worse, has managed the country for two decades or whether they wish Labour to have another stab at stewardship.

But the signs are people are tired of the obfuscation that goes into the way the island is managed - often by leaving decisions in the hands of the surrogate party faithful and servile apparatchiks all hiding behind the skirts of a politically controlled press.

There is, unmistakably, a rising chorus for people's everyday concerns to be dealt with in far more transparent ways. Whoever wins this election will be expected to bring in a refreshing, brand new administrative style.

My view remains unchanged: The only way people can feel part of a free and healthily evolving nation is through a free press that daily holds politicians to account; one that remains watchful of the cards hidden up their sleeves. That rules out politicians pulling journalists' strings.

Relying on a submissive media for winning power is an old chestnut. It's a dismal politicians' mistake. The reason is simple. People don't vote with their minds. They vote with their emotions, something their own personal experiences evoke.

Neither do issues - the stuff that nurtures much of our media - influence much peoples' voting preferences. Emotions based on real-life familiarities do. That is what makes us sanction - or roadblock - politicians' ambitions. Personal interest of course plays a major role here too.

What urges us to choose one party over the other are our own experiences at the hands of the country's institutions: whether we are satisfied with our health services, our courts, what the euro in our pocket buys us, the state of our public transport, taxation, education, jobs, the police and, not least, our freedom, the level of democracy we enjoy, whether our politicians are worth believing or not. New hospitals don't do that. Efficient nursing staffs do.

As a result, voters are unlikely to be taken in by the tinsel pledges wheeled out now, at the last minute - or by politicians darkening each other's portrait - unless this, of course, latches on to deeply-held emotions. Some emotions could surface from even 20 years back.

There's a raft of concerns at play likely to induce decisive sentiments in the forthcoming poll.

Voters will take stock of the fact this government has been in power, almost without interruption, for two decades. That's a very long time.

Those running a scorebook of their kind and mean experiences throughout those 20 years and then run them against Labour's chances of being able to satisfy or not their expectations better, will evoke the emotion - comfort or discomfort - that decides which party they vote for.

When it comes to personal finances voters will count what's being left in their pockets; they will consider the impact of constantly rising prices on their budgets and the huge amount of tax we pay against their incomes. As they listen to electoral tax-cut pledges they will ask themselves: Has this become a habitual way of stealing my vote? This stirs up one of two emotions, uncertainty or confidence: the telling effect here is worth more than a million newspaper stories. Latched to that is the anxiety, or absence of fear, they feel when considering future personal income and job stability under one government or the other.

On a broader canvass, voters will consider to what extent they have been the main beneficiaries of EU membership: Did the government raise expectations far too high four years ago? Were some people, like hunters, not told the whole truth? Many, more so the undecided, will quiz themselves whether propelling Labour into government will have a negative impact on our EU membership, but then they are already frustrated by other EU-related issues that spur emotions into a quick gallop. Sovereignty doesn't seem to play much of a part in Malta but the seemingly lack of resistance to EU delays in shoring up Maltese interests - not least as in the case of illegal immigration - will impact on people's voting decision.

Here is another concern; those who now feel they live under an all pervasive system managed by bureaucratic control freaks irreducibly bent on being selective on which Brussels-enacted legislation to apply, as in the case of the environment, will feel frustration. The perceived and real appalling waste in government spending makes voters angry: conceit and inefficiencies for which politicians and their cadres have developed reputations will spur disdain. Before you can say "Mepa" sleaze springs to mind. The question they will ask themselves is this: Will Labour do better? The answer to that question evokes the emotion that decides their vote.

Whether Alfred Sant's team can do better than the Nationalists is an issue voters, particularly those not committed to voting for either party, will take on board, but, in all likelihood, the answer will struggle to overcome the greater emotion of contempt which imagined or real government sins elicit with those who have seen pledges broken or felt let down by dodgy hard to explain government decisions.

The peaks and troughs through which our two main cash income economic activities, tourism and exports, periodically go through, incites uncertainty. Voters will again ask themselves: Can Labour place both industries on firmer foundations?

Education is another formidable issue. The reaction sparked off by questions on education will depend not so much on the arguments being traded now but on whether people feel the spate of reforms of recent years did further their children's education. People hold education very dear to their hearts - with many more than they do money.

There is also the question of many being tired of being fed pap, worthless pledges that hardly survive the election results - all of which is delivered by a media in bondage to politicians.

In the main, however, people will ask: Which party is likely to make my future more secure, my life more serene, my finances worth what I think they should be worth? Which party will not give me sleepless nights? All this whips up a spate of emotions.

Other issues flick the reins of concerns into a gallop. Every major infrastructural project is claimed to have been mired in dark suspicions of patronage and privilege, and not only major projects. That's a touch-paper to resentment. People again are disgusted by the behaviour of wide-boy politicians behaving like schoolyard bullies the minute they step into power.

What makes all these issues evoke passions is that they all revolve around the performance - present and future - of our institutions.

In the meantime, much of our media, playing as it does a sacerdotal role, remains totally locked out of this mental process, happy to be dispensing its blessings on one party or the other.

It will probably take a cold day in hell before both parties take an axe to their artificial media empires.

Here's a statistic worthy of shame. Malta is the only EU member state where the media is overwhelmingly owned by political parties. If we really wish to become a proper EU member state this is a time for change.