Telecoms company Go is claiming it has “not enough resources” to cover the general elections after announcing a new corporate policy that di-ve.com would not report any political day-to-day news throughout the election. MaltaToday is informed that government officials exerted pressure on the company after claiming the news portal was leaning too much towards Labour in its coverage. The decision brought with it the condemnation of the European Federation of Journalists and solidarity of other Maltese media.

The Malta Labour Party has greeted Go’s decision to stop its news portal di-ve.com from reporting political events with a deafening silence and an official “no comment” from its leader Alfred Sant.
Asked for his stand yesterday, Sant said he had no comments to make on the controversial decision that triggered the condemnation of the European Federation of Journalists and solidarity of other Maltese media.
Yet sources close to the Labour leadership say the feeling among the party’s higher echelons is that the silencing of another independent voice on the media landscape “is better” for the MLP.
“The independent media are always biased against Labour,” MLP officials believe, even though di-ve.com has never been accused of distorting political statements for political ends.
Ironically, the same feeling was shared by officials at the Office of the Prime Minister who expressed concern that the news portal was leaning too far towards Labour prior to Go’s decision to stop political reporting altogether.
Labour’s stand comes as a blow in the face of the di-ve.com journalists who were banking on the Opposition’s condemnation of government’s pressure on the web portal to stop political coverage.
Contacted yesterday, Labour’s secretary-general Jason Micallef said he could not comment about Go’s “commercial decision” now that it was in private hands.
“My personal point of view is that it’s an absurd decision to stop political coverage in the midst of an electoral campaign, but there’s not much we can do as Opposition given that this is a private company,” Micallef said.
“I have information that government did put pressure on di-ve.com, which is in contrast with the way it has left PBS to continue with its imbalance against Labour. I’m sure government is extremely happy to have Lou Bondì leading its electoral campaign on TVM, and you can quote me on that.”
Last Sunday, MaltaToday revealed how the prime minister’s press secretary, Josephine Vassallo, held a meeting with di-ve.com’s news editor last December “inviting” him to “be more involved in government activities because they did not have enough resources” – a weird proposal in the first place given that the prime minister’s office never concerned itself with newsrooms’ resources.
Vassallo’s claim was echoed in a statement made by Go chairman Sonny Portelli who said there were no resources to cover the elections, even though di-ve.com covered previous elections extensively with even less journalists than it has today.
“We are a private company and this is a general election where we feel we should focus on telecoms and not report on each and every party,” Portelli said. “We are not investing any more resources because our core business is not di-ve.com.”
Meanwhile the Green Party came out unequivocally against Go’s decision and condemned government’s pressure.
“It is very worrying to note that political pressure has led to this state of affairs,” said Alternattiva’s Deputy Secretary General Ralph Cassar. “We normally hear of these things in Putin’s Russsia, or even wore in Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates. I can’t understand how the owners of Go took this decision. Maybe it’s a question of mentality in the sense that they’re used to appeasing whoever is in power, in this case government? In any case this episode shows how journalists are, unfortunately, so vulnerable and subjected to dictatorial directives by whoever wants to control the press.”
Last week, the European Federation of Journalists expressed its solidarity with di-ve.com journalists and condemned Go’s decision.
“We are shocked that a major media outlet would ban political reporting right before the general elections,” said EFJ General Secretary Aidan White. “It is a craven act of self-censorship at a critical time when the public needs reliable political coverage to be able to make informed decisions on the elections. Cutting political news is a shocking violation of responsibility.”