The Prime Minister and his Cabinet colleagues may run away from waiting journalists but they cannot hide.

Admittedly, having journalists breathing down your neck and monitoring your every move is not exactly something to look forward to. However, politicians must surely realise they are constantly accountable to the people, especially if they are in decision-making positions. If they do not like the heat, they can get out of the kitchen.

It is, unfortunately, becoming the norm for ministers attending public events to evade the press by using secondary exits. Avoiding journalists is not something only Maltese politicians do, mind you. Indeed, during a brief visit to the island just a few days ago, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson would not take questions from the media though he did give a comment to PBS later, even if limiting himself to Donald Trump’s victory in the US. The Maltese media would have loved to discuss with him Malta-UK relations post-Brexit.

Last week, Tourism Minister Edward Zammit Lewis employed the ‘secondary-door tactic’, leaving journalists waiting in vain at the airport. Representatives of the Times of Malta, MaltaToday and Net TV who wanted to ask him about the talks between Air Malta and Alitalia were informed the minister had left.

So resolute was Dr Zammit Lewis in not facing the press that he even let Ryanair chief commercial officer, David O’Brien, down as he waited so they could both cut an anniversary cake.

To be fair to the minister, he did speak to a media, of his choice, however. In fact, he gave a comment to Labour’s ONE TV in a different room, which seems to indicate that Dr Zammit Lewis is either uncomfortable or unwilling to speak to journalists unless they come from ‘friendly’ media.

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has a habit of shunning the press too. During an activity at the Old University building in Valletta last month, he also left through an emergency exit while journalists waited to speak to him.

Now, of course, politicians have every right to refuse to answer questions but the least they can do is say so and not ‘chicken out’. Much less discriminate or, to be more politically correct, be selective as to which medium they would give particular information and/or comments.

Article 47 of the Press Act does say, after all, that “it shall not be lawful for the government to issue general instructions that prohibit the giving of information to any newspaper or licensed broadcasting service holding a particular view or to any specified newspaper or licensed broadcasting service”. The spirit of that provision is clear to all. Yet, it is increasingly being observed in its breach by the very same people who should be leading by example.

A government that prefers to preach only to the converted and only hear its own voice will do so at its peril.

A Eurobarometer study on ‘Media pluralism and democracy’, released just days ago, noted in its introduction that “free media and a plurality of voices in society and in the media are indispensable preconditions of and essential safeguards for a healthy democracy”.

Politicians and Cabinet ministers, in particular, are accountable to the electorate and the least the people expect from them is to communicate. We are already living in an era where the so-called ‘post-truth’ politics – statements that are based on fiction/conjecture rather than fact – prevails. Keeping certain contracts under wraps and shunning the independent press, to boot, is an indictment that politicians could do without.

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