Public Broadcasting Services said today that it is considering legal action against the Labour Party over a misleading TV spot which, it explained, changed the meaning of comments made by PBS editor Natalino Fenech.

The state broadcaster said the PL spot featured Dr Fenech's comments completely out of context. Comments were linked together to convey a message which was completely different from what Dr Fenech had said.

PBS said the PL spot also says that the prime minister controlled the news and it attacked the chairman of the editorial board, Prof Joe Pirotta and PBS CEO Anton Attard, as well as a number of presenters and PBS workers.

PBS said it had asked the Broadcasting Authority to stop One TV from further broadcasting the item.

The spot is being shown on One and on the PL Youtube channel.

In his original comment Dr Fenech had spoken about how news on TVM had changed. He said news was not about balance, but about what was new, and TVM excluded activities, even government activities, which featured nothing new.

The PL left everything out other than the comment that balance in the news did  not exist, PBS said.

It said it was being attacked by the PL, not over balance, but because of its audience.

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