Malta drops six places in global press freedom index

Malta has dropped six places in the World Press Freedom Index, thus ranking 84th out of 180 countries assessed by Reporters Without Borders.

Norway maintained the top spot and was followed by Ireland, Denmark, Sweden and Finland. Turkmenistan, Iran, Vietnam, China and North Korea are at the bottom five places in the ranking.

Only Greece fared worse than Malta from among members of the European Union. Last year, Malta had moved up three places on the press freedom index at 78th, however, this year it has marked an all-time low, placing at 84th.

Malta was in 45th place in 2013, but had plummeted to 77th in 2019.

“Germany (ranked 21st), where a record number of cases of violence against journalists and arrests have been recorded, has fallen five places. Poland (57th), where 2022 was relatively calm from a press freedom viewpoint, has risen nine places, while France (24th) has risen two. Greece (107th), where journalists were spied on by the intelligence services and by powerful spyware, continued to have the EU’s lowest ranking”, the report noted.

In Malta, journalists have to cope with a highly polarised environment under the strong influence of political parties, the report noted. In 2021, a public inquiry into the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was concluded, while listing a comprehensive set of reforms which the government has been reluctant to implement.

The ruling party wields a strong influence over the public broadcaster and uses public advertising to exert pressure on private media, it further added. Many politicians select specific journalists for exclusive interviews, while those considered “hostile” are ignored, including within the party media, it adds. The government requires an “access card” issued to journalists to cover government events or attend press conferences, it said.

Discriminating against independent media in access to information, the authorities have gone so far as to challenge in court each of the 40 requests for access to information sent by a media outlet, effectively targeting it with a new type of Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP), it said. “Journalists are regularly the targets of SLAPP, and family members of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, killed in 2017, are even targeted with posthumous defamation lawsuits.”

On almost every issue of public interest, Maltese society suffers from deep polarization, it said. Reporting on certain topics such as migration or abortion remains unpopular and incites abuse towards journalists covering these topics, it adds. “Very few journalists from minority groups work for the mainstream media. Investigative reporting is carried out by a handful of journalists, almost exclusively men.”

Full justice is yet to be served for the 2017 assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia, the fact file about Malta said. “In 2022, two hitmen pleaded guilty and were sentenced to 40 years in prison. Earlier, one of the perpetrators and the middleman were pardoned in exchange for information. But the mastermind and others involved in the crime, have yet to be convicted. Although the public inquiry recognized that ‘the state has to shoulder responsibility for the assassination because it created an atmosphere of impunity’, the resulting recommendations have not been implemented.”