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Karl Schembri
With the two political television stations giving news bulletins as if from different planets and the party newspapers excluding divergent opinions, Prof. Joe Friggieri believes the Maltese language media are lagging behind when compared to the independent English language press.
Speaking last Tuesday at the Tumas Fenech Foundation lecture on journalism, Prof. Friggieri, the head of university’s philosophy department and former Broadcasting Authority member, said it was about time the authority reviewed its policy of political balance on party stations.
The authority considers Net TV and Super 1 to balance each other just by the fact that they exist, but Prof. Friggieri said the BA should consider ways of ensuring balanced news and current affairs programmes on the individual stations.
“I think the authority should reconsider its policy of interpreting balance as one station balancing the others,” Prof. Friggieri said. “There is the feeling that party-owned stations should be the mouthpiece of the parties. Maybe the authority should revise its policy and strive to make the news bulletins and current affairs programmes on these stations more politically balanced and pluralistic.”
The idea is bound to find resistance from both parties, even because implementing it concretely may be problematic.
Prof. Friggieri however remarked that all the media owned by the institutions are a bad example of pluralism.
“If you look at Maltese language newspapers” – all of them happen to be owned by parties, the Church or unions – “they are very one-sided and exclude diverse opinions. On the other hand, the independent English language newspapers have their editorial biases but not prejudice. They are much more pluralistic and democratic.”
Asked for his opinion about the authority’s ‘balancing policy’, BA chairman Joseph Scicluna refused to comment. A spokesman for the chairman said Scicluna had to consult the law before committing himself and that he was too new to the post.
kschembri@mediatoday.com.mt
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