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While the European Parliament finalises its survey of broadcasting in Europe, Malta adds to the fun. Much of the voluminous report issued in a first installment a month ago deals with Silvio Berlusconi’s dominant position in the Italian media. His influence is exercised through the shareholding of members of his family in Italy’s major private TV network. It extends to radio and newspapers, cornering a significant part of the country’s advertising outlay.
What will the EP have to say about Malta? Is there any other country in Europe where political parties own their own media empires directly? How will they take it that the state broadcaster has been reduced to a shadow of its former self much to the advantage of its rivals? What will it make of the carving up of the state broadcaster by two political parties?
The EP’s interest in the matter arises from an acknowledgement of the importance of the media in a democracy. What does it matter that the people are asked to decide if they are not adequately informed or actively misinformed? What if a political or social reality is deliberately or negligently omitted?
The coup at PBS has been a masterpiece. The economic situation has been used as a smokescreen to justify a mass rape of the system. The deal has gone down. There has not been much resistance from the opposition. The unions have been satisfied. The employees have been left at the mercy of the elements. Brilliant.
Although PBS has long been regarded as the most reliable purveyor of news, it has benefited from the unreliability of the competition. Its standing otherwise has not been remarkable. It is not regarded as a national treasure.
Being the only broadcaster constrained to maintain a balance in broadcasting, its product has been bland, boring. The tough questions do not get asked. More often the questioning pulls punches to legitimize the illegitimate. The government, any government has pride of place from beginning to end. Viewers know that the sterile version of life churned out by PBS is not what they experience.
With almost nobody to run the news service, the situation can only get worse: a bulletin board is about to become a smaller bulletin board. If any hope survived that PBS could someday gain some depth, it has now vanished altogether. It is now impossible for the remaining staff to think of doing anything but paste up the press releases they receive. Fantastic.
We cannot afford to do otherwise? Who says? The staff that has been decimated has been offered early retirement or alternative employment with government. How much cheaper is that for the taxpayer? If labour costs were the issue, we have not got very far in the restructuring. Will a leaner PBS perform better, give the country a better service? It is an emaciated PBS that will now have to do the running. It will not be able to manage what it could do before.
The problem with the old PBS was political interference, political control and a lack of independent scrutiny of its management. Because PBS lost money did not necessarily mean that it would always lose money unless it was shriveled up into impotence. Why was the money lost? When did the millions that were supposed to be invested in re-equipping the place get frittered away? Where is it written that such follies should be endlessly repeated unless the place is starved to death? Did the regular employees make a killing or was it political appointees who redirected the cashflow?
Everything points to a deal between the other two political parties to save the media monsters they have created for themselves by carving up the broadcaster that should belong to everyone. Instead of finding ways to privatize the democratic aberrations they own, they now stand to benefit by the effective elimination of the last “non-partisan” space in broadcasting.
What was needed was not the harrowing and counter-productive decimation at PBS but a cultural, political and constitutional change to revolutionise broadcasting in Malta. The economic health of the state broadcaster would follow as a consequence of such a change. We have gone in the opposite direction consolidating the cause of the problem and ensuring the demise of PBS.
Once more we are candidates for another European record at the bottom of the lists. None of this is necessary, normal, rational or democratic. Our political pathology has taken a turn for the worse. Once the EP gets a whiff of this, Silvio Berlusconi is going to begin to smell sweet by comparison.
Dr. Vassallo is Chairperson of Alternattiva Demokratika – The Green Party harry.vassallo@alternattiva.org.mt
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