Labour lambasts PBS’s ‘unacceptable defiance’

The Public Broadcasting Services' defiance of the Broadcasting Authority during the electoral campaign is unacceptable, Labour MP Gino Cauchi said.

"The Broadcasting Authority is the country's regulatory body in broadcasting. Political appointments at PBS sure do not have the credentials to guarantee impartiality in public broadcasting," Cauchi said.

He added that the PBS reaction to the authority's decision to chastise TVM presenter Lou Bondì for his "incorrect attitude and lack of impartiality" during the Bondiplus edition of 10 January vindicated Labour's protest.

"The authority's decision is a clear and unmistakable censure of the impartial and biased manipulation of the public  opinion by GonziPN," Cauchi said.In a statement issued yesterday, PBS said that the BA's judgement is in breach of the Constitution and the principle of natural justice, given that "[the BA] has not allowed PBS a fair hearing in the cases that the BA presented against it."

"At this stage, sufficed to say that members of the BA are systemically showing, without concealment, their antagonism against PBS, even during the hearing of the complaints," PBS said, adding that this is "to the detriment of PBS's rights and those of its journalists."

PBS added that it already has pending cases before the courts regarding this issue, and in the course of hearings it has presented various documents that show "clearly and conclusively that some members of the BA publicly express not only a political bias, but also a bias against individual journalists."

The PBS also accused members of the BA of publically displaying political bias despite how those same members exercise a position where they judge others on the basis of political bias.