The Nationalist Party has filed nearly as many complaints to the Broadcasting Authority as Labour did during its last five years in Opposition, The Sunday Times of Malta has learnt.
Figures provided by the authority reveal that the PN has filed 14 complaints since the March 2013 general election, just one less than the PL had put forward between 2008 and last year. All the objections were made in relation to political imbalance and bias on discussion programmes and news broadcasts aired on Public Broadcasting Services.
A PN spokesman said the complaints reflected the “erosion of standards” at the national broadcaster. “It is clear that over the last year, PBS has been transformed from a national broadcaster into a partisan tool which censures criticism, purposely omits stories of news value and dilutes stances taken by the Opposition,” he said.
PBS head of news Reno Bugeja vehemently denied the claims. “This is libellous. The PN made similar claims when filing their complaints and we had warned them if they continued to make such claims we would consider legal action,” he said.
Mr Bugeja said the authority’s decisions on the complaints had shown it had not recognised the PN’s claims.
The latest series of broadcasts to irk the PN saw two complaints filed on alleged political imbalance during the TVM programme Issa Nista (Now I can). In a statement, the Opposition last week claimed that the documentary series was “full of political rhetoric, chosen by the government, which could in no way be considered informative”.
The authority has not yet decided whether or not to uphold the two complaints which, if accepted, will be processed by its executive board. Not all of the Opposition’s 14 objections were considered by the authority.
No action was taken on three of the protests filed. One complaint, filed after a TVM news bulletin failed to report Finance Minister Edward Scicluna’s comments on the citizenship scheme, resulted in an ambiguous authority decision. It had decided that while PBS had failed to report the minister’s comments, there was no imbalance and the PBS had editorial freedom to choose which stories to cover.
All of the complaints filed by the PL during its last stint in Opposition, on the other hand, resulted in action being taken against PBS.
People can judge for themselves whether it is fairer in its approach
Asked for a reaction, the PL insisted nothing had changed at the State broadcaster since the last general election.
“The Broadcasting Authority is composed of the same people prior to the election. As for the PBS, people can judge for themselves whether it is fairer in its approach to news and current affairs programmes,” a party spokesman said.
Commenting on the relatively high number of PN complaints, the PL spokesman said these reflected the “negative mentality” adopted by the Opposition.
Government head of communications Kurt Farrugia said the complaints filed while the PL was in Opposition were based on “realistic objections”.
“When we put forward a complaint we were reasonably sure we could get a positive outcome,” he said, adding that it was important to view the bias of broadcasts in an entire week rather than an individual programme.
The majority of the complaints filed by the PL occurred during the build-up to important national votes. For instance, the majority (seven) of the Labour Party’s complaints during the last legislature were filed in the month prior to the divorce referendum. Conversely, no protests were filed by the PL during its first year in opposition.
The largest number of complaints filed to the authority in one year came during the Alfred Sant-led Labour Opposition between 2003-2008. Dr Sant had filed 11 complaints in the months leading up to the 2008 general election, three of which were thrown out.