PN television station fined over branding blogger Manuel Delia ‘a liar’

PN news station Net News ordered to broadcast a right of reply by blogger Manuel Delia after it branded him a liar for story about PN leader Adrian Delia’s wife’s uncle getting cannabis cultivation license

Manuel Delia
Manuel Delia

Nationalist Party television station Net News has been fined and ordered to broadcast a right of reply by civil society activist Manuel Delia after it branded him a liar for posting a story about PN leader Adrian Delia’s estranged wife’s uncle getting a cannabis cultivation license.

In a blog post, titled “Mrs Adrian Delia’s uncle is first to get license to grow cannabis”, Manuel Delia had written that “the leader of the opposition was enthusiastic in his support for this legislation, and sources inform this website discussion in the PN Parliamentary Group on the subject were cut short by the leadership… Adrian Delia never declared his wife’s family and his personal election agent’s interest in the cannabis sector even as the party was developing its policy on the subject.”

Adrian Delia had sent a right of reply letter, which was reproduced on the blog, in its entirety. On the same day, Net News had published an article and TV news report titled “The PN was and still is against the cultivation of cannabis in our country – the blogger, Manuel Delia, shown to be a liar.”

The Net reports went on to make false statements about the original blog post, saying that the blogger had stated that the PN parliamentary group had voted in favour of cannabis cultivation and that he had alleged that the PN leader had forced them to do so because he had a conflict of interest to favour his wife.

Manuel Delia had written his own right of reply to the broadcast, denying the false statements, but this was rejected by Net on the grounds that it was simply a different opinion to that contained in the PN’s right of reply.

He had then taken NetNews.com editor Robert Cremona and Net TV programmes manager Fabian Demicoli to court.

Magistrate Rachel Montebello, in her judgment on the matter, observed that nowhere in Manuel Delia’s blog was there a reference to how the parliamentary group had effectively voted. “Evidently, the only reference made by the applicant in his blog of the 29 July 2018 in this regard is a reference to the Leader of the Opposition’s alleged enthusiasm for the legislation and how the parliamentary group discussions had been cut short by the Leader of the Opposition, but no more than that.”

On the other hand, the court said that it was evident that insofar as attributing allegations to the plaintiff which he had never made, Net’s reporting was littered with declarations which “were effectively not mentioned in the reply and which go far beyond that stated in it.”

Magistrate Montebello said Manuel Delia’s words had been “evidently misrepresented” and that what they had written was not a valid right of reply. This meant that Delia still had a right to reply to the August 2018 publication.

Not only had Delia’s right of reply been in line with the law, but that the defendant’s refusal to publish it was not justified, said the magistrate.

The court ruled that the PN media arm must, within two days, publish the right of reply the blogger had written in 2018 on both netnews.com.mt and on its TV news bulletin with the same prominence as it had given the original story.

The defendants were also fined €500.