One of the highlights of the 2013 electoral campaign was the barefaced abysmal bias to which public broadcasting had sunk. It had become nauseating to many people, in part accounting for the apparently substantial numbers of switchers from the Nationalist camp towards the Labour Party.
Public broadcasting had become a living symbol of arrogant flaunting of the rules that covered the medium.
Against that situation, current affair programmes are nowadays far more palatable and interesting than they have been for years. Balance is evident, confirmed by the viewership and listensership of the public broadcasting media.
That background makes the Nationalist Party position on details released by the Broadcasting Authority regarding political reactions to PBS current affairs programmes quite amazing. The Sunday Times of Malta reported yesterday that the PN has filed nearly as many complaints to the Broadcasting Authority during the past year as the Labour Party did during all of its five years in Opposition.
The PN has already filed 14 complaints, just one less than the PL had put forward between 2008 and 2013.
As is common with such complaints, all of the 14 alleged political imbalance and bias on discussion and news programmes offered by PBS. A PN spokesman, apparently oblivious of the pigsty in which public broadcasting wallowed up to the general election, especially in so called discussion programmes, told The Sunday Times of Malta that his party’s complaints reflected the erosion of standards at the national broadcaster.
The spokesman said that it was clear that, over the last year, PBS had been transformed from a national broadcaster into a partisan tool which censures criticism, purposely omits stories of news value and dilutes stances taken by the Opposition.
The fact that PBS attracts such a huge following, especially when compared to the service offered by the political media, is evidence of the marketability of its brand and content
PBS head of news, Reno Bugeja, not surprisingly denied these allegations. PBS is not perfect. But the way the Nationalists are going about lambasting it makes a mockery of what even political criticism should be.
It is important that the Opposition of the day should remain vigilant to ensure that public broadcasting gives it its due and projects a fair cross-section of reporting and comment as demanded of a democratically-functioning State service.
One would have thought that the fact that PBS attracts such a huge following, especially when compared to the service offered by the political media, is evidence enough of the marketability of its brand and content.
One should encourage that, rather than seek to terrorize it with wild accusations which, as Bugeja said, are libellous. PBS has been considering legal action.
It is unlikely that it will go that far. The best reply that the national service provider can give is to continuously try to improve its output. Public reaction to it will offer a cross-party seal of approval or otherwise. So far, approval is implied in the high listenership and viewership ratings.
It is hugely unlikely that a large chunk of Nationalists and fellow travellers are not among those who assiduously follow the news and current affairs programmes offered by PBS.
The first year of the PN in Opposition has been marked by its negative stance on practically all issues, a stance that came across also because the national broadcaster faithfully reported the PN in the essence of its statements and gave as much space on current affairs programmes as it did to the PL.
The PN did not help itself by being totally negative. It recently seemed to recognise this. It has not done so in regard to national broadcasting, going by the reactions to the Broadcasting Authority data it gave to The Sunday Times of Malta.
Whether such comments attract new support for the PN is dubious. That they place an unfair cloud over PBS and create unnecessary tensions within it goes without doubt.