Public broadcasting is being debated in parliament and the suggestions by some MPs have produced an inspiring exchange of ideas on what our public offering of TV is giving us.
The veritable surprise is the call for a move towards public broadcasting, rather than state broadcasting – a move that would mean creating an independent body to guide PBS towards a truly public-oriented broadcasting mission.
We have to face certain truths about how PBS has been handled in the last five years. For starters, it faced a radical downsizing that turned the seat of public broadcasting into a bottom-line driven establishment; redesigned to farm out its airtime, we have seen quality broadcasting turn into, at times, mediocre offerings from private TV producers who are motivated by nothing else but adverts and profits; the Head of News was appointed without a selection process that gives the impression of scant regard by the government of meritocratic principles; and the incredible turnover of PBS chairpersons and directors has only proven how excessive government control cannot guarantee a stable stewardship of such an important means of communication.
There is little doubt that all governments have used PBS as a political tool. The end-result has been the selective and contrived generation of political agendas and spin-doctored news, and of late, the detrimental quality of television production that is farmed out to private commercial firms under the guise of ‘public obligation’.
An authentic criticism of the state of our public broadcasting necessitates that we be true to history: the 1980s saw the Labour government directly manipulating PBS and its employees and news agendas, to the extent that the Leader of Opposition would not even be mentioned on Xandir Malta. Those who remember the state of broadcasting back then may find themselves taken aback at the enlightened comments of some Labour MPs who talked about PBS reform this week.
But this in itself should not preclude a healthy debate on the future of public broadcasting. Putting this behind us, the country must take courageous steps to address the need of a public broadcasting that is based on merit and that enjoys the trust of society, making it worthy and desirable to be sustained by taxpayers’ money.
This brings us to the matter of the Broadcasting Authority. For too long now, the regulatory authority for television in general has been in the clutches of party politics. The BA has its own management structure which takes steps and alerts its board of directors, composed of four representatives from the PN and PL, and an independent chairman, of breaches in the broadcasting code.
This set-up seems to reinforce the idea that the universality of the bipartisan divide has to be engrained within regulatory authorities. The reality is quite the contrary in the other regulators. Granted that the chairpersons of the resources, planning, and other authorities are directly appointed by government ministers and enjoy the trust of the party-in-government; but there is no rationale behind party-appointed directors. It is truly a relic of the past and one that shrouds the very regulation of broadcasting under the cloak of party dominance. It is quite simply an anachronism that must be done away with.
Suffice it to say that political parties are themselves players in the media – comprising of print, digital and broadcasting – competing in the field of entertainment, news and adverts with other private commercial companies. Such a conflict of interest has never been so glaring.
It is for this reason that a suggestion by a Labour MP to have the party representatives appointed to an editorial board within the Public Broadcasting Services has dampened some of the more intelligent propositions by the Opposition in parliament. Compounding the control of government inside the PBS with such bi-partisan stewardship would once again intensify control by the partitocracy of our public broadcasting; and be a directly detrimental control of the public station by competitors from the political stations. It is a non-starter.
The future of public broadcasting lies in the formation of a public, not national, station that enjoys independence from the government, whose stewardship is mandated by democratic and meritocratic principles, and whose dedication is to the general public – not to the government of the day.
Having a board of trustees that guides this mission, such as the one employed at the BBC, is a suggested way forward. Trustees would be appointed by the President on advice from ministers, through a selective process that is advertised. They would be chosen on merit, relating to their fields of expertise from the gamut of skills necessary to bring about quality broadcasting. They will be, after all, representing the views of taxpayers who finance PBS. They must be interviewed as part of any selection process inside the civil service and the PBS Chairman. And they should be paid an adequate salary that guarantees they spend substantial time during the week working inside PBS. They should also declare their commercial interests. It would then be up to the management of PBS to bring into fruition the strategy and vision of the board of trustees.
The change towards public, not state, broadcasting means less partisan politics and giving a focus to things in the national interest – and not the party interest. It is time we offload this uncomfortable baggage.
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