It was about a month ago that we saw the country’s major institutions – the political parties of government and the Church – engulfed in scandal and subjected, concurrently, to terrible media headlines.
Since then, media scandal has attached itself mainly to Labour politicians and, by association, other State institutions. But does this dark period, for the country’s leaders and the State, point to a new golden age for news?
Even as disgust at the leaders has spread, eager public consumption of the various news sources has grown. The race, between different media organisations, for new revelations has sometimes meant two or three different scoops per day. Some online polls, while not scientific, have seen public participation treble if not quadruple.
Could this be a sign that the media in Malta are coming of age, settling into the role of a reliable watchdog?
We can’t begin to answer the question for ourselves without clearing our minds of some of the nonsense we tell ourselves about what makes for a mature media landscape. That is, one in which news-making is valued for its own sake by independent news organisations, driven by values that underpin a democratic way of life.
Such a landscape is not brought about by having the media exercise neutrality between sides or values. On the contrary. Journalistic independence is not neutrality. Nor is it, necessarily, impartiality.
Neutral journalism keeps an equal distance between conflicting sides. It’s non-committal. In the current controversy involving Minister Manuel Mallia, it would mean not taking a position on whether the minister should resign and a refusal to pronounce judgement on the quality of the arguments being made for one side or another.
Impartiality is not neutrality. Journalism is impartial not when it refuses to take sides on any particular issue.
Impartiality is displayed in the long run – in the willingness to decide every controversy on its merits, irrespective of whose side one ends up on.
Investigative journalists show impartiality in their willingness to subject everyone to equal close scrutiny – not in keeping at a distance from everyone.
Hence why the BBC can be both impartial and controversial. On any particular story, its reportage might show that the Opposition rather than the government is right (or vice-versa) and thus be subjected to accusations of taking sides. But if the BBC reports seem to favour one side rather another, it is out of loyalty to the facts not to the side. The BBC’s impartiality is established by the way it tackles the breadth of news stories over the long run.
Impartial journalism has to be independent. But not all independent journalism need be impartial
Impartial journalism has to be independent. But not all independent journalism need be impartial. Independence is established by the answers to two simple questions about conflicts of interest.
Does the journalist take orders from one of the sides involved? Does the journalist take money from or owe money to one of the sides?
A journalist can therefore be independent even while being wildly biased or consistently contemptuous of a particular political party. It is possible to be consistently independent while being consistently mistaken. In itself, independence is no guarantee of journalistic quality.
A rotten journalist can be independent. Independence simply guarantees that the reports, investigation or opinion have not been corrupted by any conflicts of interest.
It is, therefore, possible to provide biased but independent journalism. Just what bias is, however, is itself subject to much misunderstanding.
There are two common positions taken on the subject. The first is that it’s perfectly possible to distinguish facts from values. And, therefore, unbiased journalism will similarly be based on such distinctions. Even if evaluation is actually offered, it will be hermetically sealed from the unvarnished facts.
The second position is that while, in principle, it should be possible to distinguish facts from values, it’s impossible in practice. Human nature is too weak. Subjective judgement overwhelms the best of us. This position holds that no one can be evenly balanced. Anyone who thinks they can offer a balanced judgement is a fool wilfully blind to his limitations.
We are each far too rooted in a particular standpoint to be able to distance ourselves enough from a case to offer an Olympian judgement.
My own view is that both positions are mistaken. We cannot drop our values but balanced judgement is possible.
Facts cannot be cleanly separated from values because only values help us select this, rather than that, news story as worth pursuing. Only values can guide us in prioritising news stories.
Something as banal as the order of headlines – whether in a TV news bulletin or as reflected in which story is printed on which page – reflects a systematic scale of values.
The fact that different news organisations post the same headlines in the same order is not an indication that each organisation has transcended its values. It simply reflects that the different organisations share the same values.
This much has been made clear in the current accusations of abuses of power by various politicians who are associated with the Labour Party.
The accusations have been occupying the headlines but when TVM’s Reno Bugeja confronted Joseph Muscat with a list of them, the latter replied that the public attention being given does not tally with what the public really values, which is (according to the Prime Minister) whether people are financially better off in the end.
On this specific point, Muscat surely is right.
It is a matter of values that determines whether these allegations should continue to hog the limelight until they are resolved, one way or another.
However, to say that all media stories are selected on the basis of a scale of values, which not everyone shares, is not the same as saying that such a selection is always slanted and that, therefore, it is imbalanced.
Democracy cannot be guaranteed without certain values, such as the rule of law, transparency and accountability. Without these values, there are no democratic balances. And, therefore, balanced news can only be offered by a media organisation whose selection of news stories is governed by those values.
Time will tell whether Muscat is also right about what the Maltese public really values.
If the stories simply fade away, off the headlines, without resolution, he would have every reason to conclude that he was right about us.
Indeed, if that happens, the rest of us would have every reason to conclude that the reason the media were running with the stories initially had less to do with the values that underpin democracy and more to do with the value that underpins commerce, market share. The golden age for news would have to wait for another era.
ranierfsadni@europe.com