The great rift in Maltese society has been intensified by the echo chambers of modern-day media, social media and the internet.
Television was first introduced in Malta in 1959. The only broadcasts available at the time were RAI programmes transmitted from Sicily. TVM, the public broadcasting station, started broadcasting in 1962 and in 1991, the government opened the television market to more stations, initially granting licences to the two main political parties and to the Church.
In less than three decades the four local stations were joined by another three privately-owned stations together with a number of networks transmitting hundreds of stations via cable, terrestrial and satellite reception. Notwithstanding all this, three decades ago we had less connectivity but more connection.
A person today can have hundreds of Facebook friends, and few if any, actual friends. Loneliness and isolation have become a major challenge.
I was 15 when television was first introduced. I grew up with RAI and TVM, Redif-fusion, the Times of Malta, the Encyclopedia Britannica, the English Sunday papers that my father, and later on I, used to buy, and the BBC.
The facts that I digested were the facts that everyone else who followed these media, digested. The news and opinions that I read or followed were available to anyone who was interested in reading or following these publications and programmes.
The editors of these media outlets were a fellowship of very well-informed, fair-minded and impartial curators who believed that their job was to bring balanced and unbiased perspective to what their readers or viewers should know.
A person today can have hundreds of Facebook friends, and few if any, actual friends. Loneliness and isolation have become a major challenge
They were secure in the knowledge that even if perfect impartiality was unattainable, the constant pursuit of it, armed with unpretentiousness and intellectual honesty, was the best antidote to ignorance, lack of knowledge and demagoguery.
Today, alas, with very few exceptions, this solidarity, this harmony, is lost.
The news and opinions that I now read or follow have nothing in common with those of others and each and every one of us has to work hard if we really want to experience a diversity of viewpoints and perspectives because the physical and electronic isolation from people we disagree with, will allow the forces of prejudice, conformity to group thinking (which avoids critical examination of alternatives), and tribalism to push us still further apart.
I realise, for example, that for some time now I shun and no longer read articles or commentaries in the print media written by certain exponents of political parties and politicians, because of a preconceived notion that all they write is spin.
I no longer watch the news on local TV stations because of what a learned friend termed “terminological inexactitude”.
Sir Henry Taylor once observed “falsehood ceases to be falsehood when it is understood on all sides that the truth is not expected to be spoken”.
And yet, subconsciously I know that this is illogical because I already know the ideas common within my circle of friends and acquaintances and to perfect my thoughts and ideas, I need to take off the blinkers and chew on and debate the ideas of others, especially those with whom I disagree.
Technology and the social media have made it increasingly easy for people to only connect and seek out information from those who share their views. We deny facts and process and applaud only the biased and skewed media content and information that deprecates and vilifies those who do not share our team’s views.
What a pity. Practically, all knowledge accumulated by the human race since the beginning of time is readily available on our smart phones and tablets.
We know so much more than our predecessors ever knew, and yet some people who wear blinkers thrive on conspiracy theories, the echo of their own voices and the opinions of dogmatists and fools.
John O’Dea is a retired accountant.
This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece