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The biggest gaffe of Prime Minister Gonzi so far has been to deliberately exclude some media organisations from the government briefing prior to the announcement of the pre-budget document. Gonzi opted to choose those journalists whom he considers to be most loyal to him and these included the Catholic Church media. Oddly and surprisingly enough the Malta Institute of Journalists remained silent on the matter.
I have great respect for the Malta Institute of Journalists and it was thanks to them and to that short-sighted employer who refused to allow a journalist of his to attend a seminar in Cyprus on gender-balance in the media, that I was able to attend that seminar. However, I found it odd that more than a week after this ‘selective media manipulation’, the Institute did not issue a press release to condemn this unacceptable behaviour from the Head of Government who is supposed to be representing the interests of all the Maltese people and not of those who are mellow and complacent with him.
Gonzi cannot pretend to be Rupert Murdoch. If Murdoch can afford to hire and fire, Gonzi cannot. If Murdoch can afford to target the media he believes will best get his message across, Gonzi cannot because his money is our money and what he does with our money is our business. If Murdoch could afford to buy the entire package to transmit all the World Cup games next year, Gonzi cannot and so he cannot pretend to be running the government as if it was the Murdoch empire.
His pre-budget orientation meeting with his faithful journalists sent a very negative message: that the right of information in Malta is limited to those who are pro-Gonzi.
There cannot be a system in a democratic society where the government divides the categories of journalists and media organisations into first and second class information providers. And if the Institute of Journalists remains silent on the matter then it will be endorsing the government’s decision to discriminate between members of the local media.
It is irrelevant for that section of the media which is in Gonzi’s good books to come out and wave the white flag stating that it did not know about this selectivity when it attended the meeting with the Prime Minister in Girgenti last Saturday. Or for the editor of one of these privileged newspapers last Sunday to comment and criticise Gonzi’s decision not to give equal access to all the local media. Once these journalists attended the briefing and stayed there without showing any solidarity with their colleagues who have been intentionally left out by Gonzi, they have endorsed the Prime Minister’s undemocratic move.
Last Saturday’s incident must be taken as an isolated incident but as a dark chapter in the right of information in Malta. I have always and only admired Fenech Adami for making a mountain out of a molehill when he was the leader of the opposition. I can picture him and his party making an international issue out of this incident, and rightly so especially this is no trivial matter but a big blow to the freedom of the press in Malta. Splashing the news in the front page is not enough: the international media organisations, the European Union and the Council of Europe all have to be informed about what is going on in Malta.
By being selective, Gonzi sent the message that he is in control of the information in Malta and that he knows the media organisations in Malta that are best suited to get his message across: the Church, the Times, and his party machine. And he is correct because they are the three major organisations who can deliver a message across at a high speed and to the largest audience. But by doing so, the other journalists and other media organisations were branded as unreliable and untrustworthy for his cause whereas his blue-eyed ones will from now on have their media coverage on Gonzi and his government taken with a pinch of salt.
Gonzi’s action came as no big surprise and it is just a replica of what goes on at PBS. The PBS is also run by our money and is supposed to belong to all of us but we are all aware of the game of musical chairs that goes on between PBS and Net. Faces on PBS are one season on TVM and the next season on Net and others set up companies to hide their faces in order not to make it too obvious that they have now infiltrated TVM. There is no doubt that the Nationalists are in control of PBS just as the Labourites were in its control when they were in government between 1971 and 1987.
The only difference is that Labour’s doing at that time was considered a vice and the Nationalists doing nowadays is considered to be a virtue. I say this because contrary to what used to take place in the seventeen years of Labour administration, the champions in freedom of information and in access to information have nowadays been swept with the tide and find nothing wrong in the Nationalists’ doing. It is so sad that there is nobody who is ready to analyse the situation in Malta so that now we have reached the stage that almost anything goes as long as they are in our good books.
There is no doubt that the right of information in the West is going through a very bad phase because it is still assimilated with rich media empires: the more rich you are the more access to information you have. The West has still to recognise that the right of information as a social right and if it continues to be equated with money, then this right is in serious jeopardy indeed. Even the European Union must recognise that there should be no affinity between free market economy and the right of information and as long as these two continue to walk hand in hand, then Europe will run the risk of having information accessible to the rich and no other, or rather inferior, information accessible to the poor.
But Gonzi cannot afford this. He must now bring his feet back on the ground, accept that all Maltese have the right to information, and consider last week’s doing as a dark chapter in his career as Prime Minister and resolve not to repeat it again! Only then he can be back on track.
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