PBS not fulfilling its role
The role of public broadcasting, that which us paid for by all of us, is to present a comprehensive picture of what is happening in Malta, give a voice to all the stakeholders, and offer a platform where the real issues are discussed.
Whichever party is in government is often accused of using Public Broadcasting Services for its own purposes, with TVM acting as a propaganda machine to inflate all the good that the government does, and to deflate all that could hurt it.
These last few years have seen an escalation of this, and we are so close to the scenario of the early 1980s, when the Labour government’s hold on public broadcasting was absolute. This was happening at a time when there were no TV stations other than that owned by the State, no private radio stations and certainly no online portals or social media to give viewers and listeners a choice. At least, nowadays people can get their news via many other means.
These days we have not yet arrived at the point where the Opposition Leader’s name is not mentioned on the national station. But what PBS is doing, and how it is behaving, is pushing the government agenda to the extreme, so much so that viewers are getting a very distorted picture of what it happening in the country.
PBS is not doing it as openly as it did when it was known as Xandir Malta. It has perfected the art of being subtle in the way it supports all that is pro-government, belittles all that is critical to government ways, and gives the impression that we are living in a glorious country where everything is running smoothly.
People who just get their information from PBS news, especially the 8pm bulletin which remains the most watched programme across the board, will not get to know much about what the government’s critics are saying. If they are reported, the items are relegated to the end of the bulletin by which time people would have either turned the channel or lost interest.
What is equally shameful is that discussion programmes have been reduced to a minimum, demoted to PBS’ secondary channel, and often choose to avoid discussing what really matters. Instead, they come up with issues that they know will create controversy but which are of ancillary importance, leaving out the topics that people want to hear about. By bringing people who they know will say something outrageous, they attempt to deflect attention from the real problems the country is facing.
Added to all this, any organisation that speaks out against the government is not given attention by PBS. Just to give one example, NGO Repubblika – one of the most vocal anti-government entities – has said that it has not been invited on any TVM programme for the past two years.
PBS is funded by all taxpayers, be they Labourites, Nationalists, Greens, small party voters and others who do not turn up to the polling booth. It should therefore serve the people, not the government.