The Broadcasting Authority has ruled that the PBS newsroom did not report in a balanced manner in two cases on which the Labour Party had complained, the PL said yesterday.

In one case, PBS failed to cover visits by the Labour leader to the Cooperatives Board and to a local hotel.

The state broadcaster also failed to include a PL seminar about the creative industry in its 8pm news bulletin, despite sending a crew to cover the event.

On the other hand, a few days later, PBS reported a document launched by the government about the same subject.

This behaviour did not augur well, especially as the country was approaching a general election, Labour said.

In a statement PBS said it would be contesting the authority’s decisions in court, saying the criteria established by law on balance had to do with news value and not with the source of the news.

The cooperatives board visit was not broadcast the day after but in another report and in the case of the seminar, the national policy was more important.