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The running commercial dispute between the Malta Football Association and the three largest national TV stations, including the public broadcaster, has left at least one victim that has no voice in the whole debate: the football fan.
MFA league results and reviews are not being aired on either, TVM, One TV or NET. The climax of this ongoing saga was the failure of the three stations to report the impressive home victory of Malta over Hungary earlier this month, with sports results of other nations participating in the same competition featuring prominently.
MaltaToday asked Prof. Saviour Chircop, director of the Centre for Communication Technology at the University of Malta to comment on whether it makes sense in such a situation to refrain from reporting football results, even if they are of a certain importance.
Unfortunately, sports journalists working for the respective TV stations contacted by MaltaToday to contribute to the debate declined the invitation citing ongoing discussions with the MFA as the reason for their silence.
News is a communication exchange that goes beyond information sharing. News allows us to experience solidarity as citizens, and as social agents within a global environment. Building on the news we acquire, we then build opinions and construct arguments, which we share during social encounters. News is at the heart of a democratic system.
Given the importance of news in our individual and collective lives then those who create news, those who disseminate news and receivers are intertwined together through social and economic rights and obligations. Within this framework one can then question whether anyone is justified in depriving others of news.
Here I propose two different approaches: an economic and an ethical argument.
Is it right that anyone deprive others of news when news has become such a pivotal part of sustainable living?
Answering this question requires a distinction between need and desire. The need to know and the desire to know create different kinds of rights and obligations. For example, knowing that a hurricane is approaching is a need while knowing that a celebrity has had a haircut is a desire rather than a need. Actually one might rightly question whether the latter could be classified as news! In the former situation, the news industry will often take the initiative and provide the news service even when an industrial action has already been announced. The news industry, fully mindful of its own responsibility provides an emergency service. On October 24th and 25th, Italian journalists organised an industrial action in support of their contractual claims. Yet, the media channels still provided an emergency news service.
However, news is also a commodity within an economic framework and as such is governed by the rules of supply and demand. Thus news becomes a traded artifact that one withholds or provides in support of one’s employment or other rights. Creators of news embargo their stories until such a time as to create better impact. Journalists can withhold information in support for claims related to working conditions or some other claim.
Yet in this latter context, those who withhold information must be aware of the consequences of their action, both in the short and long term, on the market. One must also consider the difference between private and public broadcasting stations.
Prof. Saviour Chircop is director of the Centre for Communication Technology at the University
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