A former Labour Party newspaper editor and a former Nationalist Party candidate will sit side by side and call the editorial shots at PBS.
Felix Agius, a former editor of the PL’s weekly KullĦadd, and lawyer Martin Fenech were yesterday appointed to the national broadcasting station’s editorial board.
Dr Fenech’s name cropped up during the election campaign as a business partner of former Labour finance officer Joe Cordina. The company they ran was implicated in the oil scandal after it offered trustee services to George Farrugia, the man who was granted a presidential pardon.
Dr Fenech and Mr Cordina had denied any knowledge or involvement in the oil scandal, saying they had stopped their business relation with Mr Farrugia when their client was implicated in a family feud over missing funds.
Last November, Dr Fenech contested the casual election to fill the parliamentary seat vacated by former Foreign Minister Tonio Borg, who became European Commissioner.
The editorial board that is responsible for all the station’s content will be headed by Joseph Sammut, a public relations officer at Caritas, the Church’s social agency.
Mr Sammut had occupied various positions within the civil aviation industry, including executive chairman at Malta Inter-national Airport and head of sales at Air Malta. He had also served on the board of the Broadcasting Authority and was editor of Radio Malta.
The Government also announced sweeping changes to the station’s board of directors, which will be headed by veteran industrialist Tonio Portughese.
Dr Portughese is a long-standing director of the Malta branch of STMicroelectronics but his face was a common sight in the 1980s and 1990s as a moderator on political debates organised by the Broadcasting Authority.
Theatre director Albert Marshall, who was chief executive at PBS during the 1996 Labour Administration, was appointed deputy chairman.
The board contains an eclectic mixture of people with little or no experience in broadcasting.
The board members are lawyer and The Sunday Times columnist Claire Bonello, actor and film critic Tony Cassar Darien, sports doctor Edward Cassar Delia, former Nationalist Party MP and president Frank Portelli, Paul Vella, a director of printing company Velprint and a former State broadcaster journalist, and financial services practitioner Adriana Zarb Adami.
The Home Affairs Ministry, responsible for PBS, said it would shortly be setting up another board to suggest reforms to the station’s structure.
One of the first decisions the board of directors is expected to take is whether to confirm Anton Attard as the station’s chief executive and whether to retain Natalino Fenech as head of news.
Sources said Reno Bugeja was earmarked for Dr Fenech’s post but any such move could not be made before the new board was reinstated.
ksansone@timesofmalta.com