Voices in the media are something of a cacophony. That’s how it should be in a democratic society, the media as an essence of the cacophony of opinions. Different media or broadcasting houses also have differing editorial policies, which are broadly defined by lineages of political ideology. Contributors also range across the ideological spectrum, falling on one side or the other.

But in Malta, beyond the editorial or ideological leanings, there is a perverting influence on the media landscape: partisanship engendered by the two main parties. That’s the main reason why confidence in the media is dangerously low – only half of the people polled recently by this newspaper ‘trust’ the media, a percentage as low as the courts. A greater proportion of people have ‘trust’ in the government, and that is worrying because it is the media that is supposed to hold the government to account, not the other way round.

This inversion of confidence is largely due to the fragmentation and perversion of the media by the entrenchments of partisanship. It is an aberration in democratic societies for the chief political parties to have such a pervasive media presence – daily newspaper, radio and TV – which are purveyors of glorified partisan propaganda. To watch the news of the two TV stations of the parties in quick succession is a study in the alternative, parallel realities of propaganda.

So a substantial proportion of Malta’s populace are daily consumers of partisan propaganda and, instead of nurturing critical thinking on matters of national importance, these people become intellectually trapped in the trenches of partisanship. This is not healthy in a democracy; the main parties do the country no favours by foisting their propagandist media on the national consciousness.

The government of the day wields even greater media influence through its subtle control of State TV. It does this by appointing closet partisans, sympathetic to the party in government, to key editorial positions. This means that the only independent TV stations are fringe channels.

As for newspapers in Maltese, only Illum is independent of the political parties, and it will not break the hold of the partisan newspapers for as long as it is not published daily. This does not auger well for our democracy because a substantial proportion of the populace – those not comfortable with reading English, not internet savvy – are caught in the entrails of the political parties’ divisive, propagandist spins that pass as journalism.

Yet the manifestations of partisanship also infiltrate to some extent the so-called independent media – the three newspapers in English. I am talking about certain columnists whose professed independence of thought is betrayed by partisan leanings on subjects close to home. And a small percentage of reporters whose partisan leanings are at times defined by their choice of stories, or the angles they take in certain stories.

The possibility of vexatious libel ought to be more expressly discouraged by introducing the concept of damages for the journalist

This is insidious because, at a time when the influence of the independent news-papers is waning, any manifestation of partisanship further fragments and weakens these newspapers. These newspapers are already compromised by diminished finances; resources for thorough, proper investigations are lacking and journalists have insufficient time for individual stories.

The threat of libel suits is another besiegement. It is open knowledge among journalists that the rich and powerful file libel suits to put up the pretence of rebuttal even in cases in which what is reported is accurate. Libel suits are then dragged out, and by the time the court rules on the matter the story’s effect would have faded. It’s the public interest that loses, as well as the harried journalists.

In this climate of emasculation of journalism, part of the climate of impunity oft mentioned after the slaying of Daphne Caruana Galizia, some of the provisions in the Media and Defamation Bill published by the government this week are pointedly emancipating. Criminal defamation and precautionary garnishees are being consigned to history; time-limits for initial hearing of libels and time-limits for decisions on frivolous libels are being introduced and multiple libels for the same claims of supposed injuriousness will no longer be possible.

But the Bill doesn’t go far enough. The possibility of vexatious libel – deploying libel as a pretension of innocence, a legal weapon of the crooked – ought to be more expressly discouraged by introducing the concept of damages for the journalist. If what is published is correct and it was published in good faith, then it’s fair for the plaintiff to be ordered to pay for moral and material damages to the author. The law should also narrow the discretion of magistrates in deciding what’s in the public interest (after all, journalists have a greater intuition in this matter).

And beyond promulgating a law, if politicians are serious about empowering and emancipating the media, they could put their heads together and banish the debilitating partisanship that their media outlets have fostered. They could mutually agree on a mechanism to implement certain minimum editorial standards or, better still, begin a process of transforming their media outlets from disseminators of news in a wide sense to the publication or broadcast of material more strictly relevant to their functions as political parties.

This would free up resources, allowing independent media outlets to sprout and grow, creating a healthier body of media better geared to serve its role in a democracy.

Victor Paul Borg is a freelance journalist who has worked in journalism in the UK, the US and various other countries.