Preaching to the converted

The Labour Party's e-newspaper is back - with a bang. The revamped Maltastar has got a big headline warning us about the "unmitigated disaster" heading our way. Actually this was a news item where Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association president Kevin Decesare's comments about the negative outlook for the tourism industry were being reported.

He said that "if the downward trend continues over the next six months, then we are definitely in for an unmitigated disaster". Switching over to Maltarightnow - the Nationalist news portal - someone hasn't recognised the news value of Decesare's words. There's nothing about impending disasters but an optimistic headline about government projects and investment in the tourism sector. It's happy hour here. We're told that another €2 million is going to be pumped into getting the Barrakka lift up and running. Back in the Labour corner we find out that this won't happen in the near future - not until 2011 at least.

Both Maltastar and Maltarightnow report libel awards. Former Prime Minister Alfred Sant's court victory against Nationalist MEP gets prominent billing on the Labour Party's place on the Worldwide Web. Strangely enough, there's no sign of this over at the blue end. That's not because they don't find libel judgments uninteresting. A detailed report of the libel suit won by Speaker Louis Galea is given pride of place here. Maybe the fact that the defendant in this case was the Labour politician Joe Mifsud has something to do with the inclusion of this judgment, but not the other. I surf away - annoyed, not only at the horrible jingle advising me (non-stop) to change my razor blade every so often, but at the selective reporting, the not-so-subtle attempts at bias and the utterly contrasting images portrayed by the respective party organs.

While Maltastar depicts a gloomy scenario where all the nation's woes are attributable to the government, the PN e-paper presents an improbably optimistic outlook on life. Problems are always being seen to ("Government meeting to address 'waiting list' challenge"), investments being made and great things are on the horizon. If Maltarightnow was a T-shirt it would be the one with the words, 'The future's so bright, I've got to wear shades' emblazoned across it. Anything that goes wrong is in some way traceable to the Labour Party, its 1980s legacy, its short-lived stint in government in 1996 or the mentality it is supposed to have rooted in its supporters. Responsibility is never attributed to the government, which has been in power in one reincarnation or other for the past 20 years, give or take a few months.

A certain degree of puffery and praise for its own officials and exponents may be expected from the party media. That's one of the reasons for the expensive party media structures, after all. However, I wonder if the PL and PN media have crossed the line from being channels of communication (albeit sympathetic to the party which owns them) to becoming propaganda tools. There is no universally accepted definition of propaganda, though there is some census on it being more of an appeal to the emotions rather than to reason and that it serves to further the agenda of a certain individual or group. You can see this is largely what the politically-owned media are all about. They're into eliciting panicky responses from readers ("impending disaster") and not so much into informing the public - otherwise there wouldn't be so many selective omissions.

So readers are served up with one-sided arguments, incomplete news and predictable opinion-pieces about how great X party is and how awful Y party is. And yet, politically-owned media have their devotees - the readers and viewers who want to reinforce their prejudices, to confirm their world-view and to assure themselves that they are reading the views of like-minded people.

As John Zammit, editor of the Nationalist Medialink Communications, pointed out, recent studies show that readers chose the media that supported their own beliefs and bias. People wanted to read items which would confirm their convictions. The party media were simply giving their readers what they wanted.

This is a good strategy insofar as it translates into retaining readers or viewers. Preaching to the converted may strengthen the feeling of belonging to a particular group and strengthen pre-existing convictions. But it is doubtful how successful a marketing strategy which is entirely based on retaining faithful supporters can be.

Unless new supporters or clients can be recruited, the existing base of party faithful will not expand. Eventually, it will become an increasingly costly operation with diminishing returns. The strategy will prove to be even riskier if potential recruits are drawn to another grouping. The riskiness of preaching to the choir has been recognised by Zammit, who said that politically-owned television stations could be a hindrance as they led the party to focus solely on its supporters without reaching out to the rest of the population.

It is odd to see that though someone as significant in the PN media hierarchy has realised that the party media are not attracting people who are not diehard supporters, nothing is being done to alter the strategy of preaching to the choir.

Probably, it's due to the fact that the PL media are yodelling away to their own. No wonder the rest of us have left the building.

cl.bon@nextgen.net.mt