PBS has requested a public apology from the Divorce Movement following "its deceitful press release" issued this morning.

The movement this morning said it had its ­first official complaint to the Broadcasting Authroity regarding "the blatant imbalance" shown on PBS's television news on Saturday.

The bullettin, it said, included an item on the discussion on divorce held by AZAD in the morning and an exponent from Zwieg Bla Divorzju was interviewed and answered questions on camera separately from the debate while representatives of the Moviment IVA were ignored.

PBS said this evening it waited a number of hours before replying hoping the movement would retract its statement "containing a gross untruth" about the way PBS reported the discussion.

"It is a lie to say, as the Movement IVA ghad-Divorzju said, that in a story in Saturday's news bulletin, PBS ignored their movement but carried comments from an activist of the anti-divorce lobby.

"The news story actually carried comments from both lobbies, with Dr Deborah Schembri commenting on behalf of the IVA movement while Joyce Cassar spoke for the anti-divorce movement.

"This is yet another attempt aimed at conditioning and tarnishing the national TV station. The fervor in issuing a statement without checking basic facts is unacceptable and Movement IVA ghad-Divorzju should apologise for misleading the public in such a way," PBS editor Natalino Fenech said.