Promoting democracy? “The most pernicious lie in politics is that the press is a democratising force. Journalists congratulate themselves for promoting democracy even as they seek to shut it down. Witness the frantic campaigns in the Mail, Telegraph, Sun and Express to crush Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats. He’s no firebrand, but the rightwing press knows the Lib Dems would introduce proportional representation and a fairer party funding system”. (George Monbiot, writing in The Guardian this week). Sound familiar? You bet it does. And it’s certainly opportune to take a good, hard look at the way the media operate in our own small corner of the vast land where democracy is said to rule supreme. 1) Political party TV and radio stations. If Monbiot thinks that the press and party fixers wield excessive power in Britian, what would he make of a country where roughly half the journalists operate as mouthpieces for the two traditional political parties and frequently use the journalistic route to climb up the political ladder? Several MPs on either side of the House have made use of this route, the stellar metamorphosis of Joseph Muscat from partisan Super One hack to Leader of the Opposition being the most blatant example of the way journalism has been denatured and hijacked in this country. 2) Politicians as opinion columnists. A peculiar Maltese phenomenon – which I have not witnessed anywhere else – is the regular presence of what I call politico-journalists in the opinion pages of our more or less independent newspapers. This appears to serve three main functions, the first being to inform readers what a great/hopeless job the government of the day is performing; secondly to keep readers abreast of the work carried out by the politician in question and third to allow up-and-coming politicians to sing the praises of their elders. The overall effect is, inevitably, more political propaganda than journalism proper. 3) Where’s Everybody? The undisputed dominance of this company on the public broadcaster owes a lot to its founders’ ability and continuity but the underlying suspicion of strong bias in favour of the Nationalist Party has been a real problem for a number of years now. 4) The Online Bitchfest. Five years after the Maltese blogosphere took off, largely thanks to the efforts of Toni Sant and Jacques Zammit, the situation looks dire. J’accuse’s platform for rational debate – one of the only truly independent spaces available for proper discussion about Maltese politics – is still up and running and there are indications that the political parties are slowly taking note (while several journalists simply give it the cold shoulder). Any comments? |
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