The recent rather clumsy intervention in Parliament by Foreign Minister George Vella on the need to “control” the media in Malta has highlighted again the imperative necessity for the press to fight for its freedom. The best that can be said in mitigation of what the Minister said is that he was under personal pressure when he made it as a result of the government’s self-inflicted difficulty over the ministerial code of conduct and its current interpretation. His plea is that he was misunderstood and his lapse may therefore be forgiven.
The great political philosopher, Edmund Burke had famously said: “There were Three Estates in Parliament, but in the Reporter’s Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important than them all.” Since the long fight for the freedom of the press in the 18th century, the importance of newspapers as the Fourth Estate – to which Minister George Vella also made reference – informing and reflecting public opinion, has become unquestioned.
The need for independent journalists, free comment and access to information, are today agreed by all politicians and administrators in thriving democracies throughout the world. Only authoritarian regimes embrace Lenin’s view that “freedom is so precious that it should be rationed”. It would be a great pity if Minister Vella’s words were interpreted in this way.
In Malta – as with so many of our civil rights – we came late to freedom of the press. This was won over a century ago in the face of stiff opposition from the Maltese Church, reluctant as always to cede what it saw as a potential threat to its power. We have enjoyed freedom of expression and of the press ever since. It is embedded in Article 41 of our Constitution as a fundamental right, although as fellow commentator Michael Falzon pointed out, “In Malta, we have a nominally free press, but also a libel law and relevant case-law loaded against this freedom.”
The situation is compounded here by the intolerance expressed by both sides of Malta’s tribal divide, the mutual dislike generated between citizens, stoked by the vile and poisonous language used by some newspaper columnists, who should know better, to describe “the others”, and the refusal to acknowledge that the other side may have a perfectly respectable contribution to make. These attitudes in sections of the press were a shocking indictment of the recent election campaign, which persists even now almost three months after. It is a mark of Malta’s political immaturity, which Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has promised to overcome – but presumably not by seeking to “control” the press.
Some newspapers exercise their versions of free speech under blatantly politically partisan banners. No harm with this, and everybody in Malta knows the score – except presumably those who are wedded to those newspapers and accept their political party’s propaganda unquestioningly. For some semblance of objectivity, in both news reporting and analysis, however, one has to go to the independent, mainly English language newspapers of The Malta Independent, The Times of Malta and MaltaToday, and their Sunday stablemates.
Malta enjoys a relatively vibrant press. In recent years, as the electorate has become more educated, more discerning and less deferential, and with the arrival of thrusting, new independent newspapers, the standard of analysis and commentary has improved. There is, however, much more that can be done.
Our capacity for investigative journalism of the kind we have seen so successfully conducted by, for example, The Daily Telegraph in the United Kingdom with its exposure of the expenses scandal by Members of Parliament, has on the whole been lacking here. The role of investigative journalism is to hold politicians and officialdom to account and, although efforts were made here both with the secretive ministerial pay increase and the contract for the new power station by the previous Nationalist administration, they seemed at the time to peter out inconclusively. The former came to haunt the previous government only later. This said, the story broken by MaltaToday into the Oilgate scandal at the beginning of the year was a brilliant piece of journalism and a game-changer in the ensuing election campaign. We need more, not less, of this in a healthy democracy.
The absolute test of good investigative journalism must be that the story should be in the public interest, exposing a serious misdemeanour and preventing the public from being misled by some statement or action of an individual, a ministry or organisation. To this extent, the three Maltese independent newspapers’ gritty criticism of the government’s wayward interpretation of the ministerial code of ethics passes every element of this test. A matter is in the public interest because the public has the right to know, in the service of fairness and openness as part of a democracy, if it is being deceived. The country needs this robust form of reporting if we want to preserve an open society.
The press and media may sometimes be troublesome and expose matters we would prefer to think did not exist, but the alternative of a cosy Establishment that only looks after its own interests is worse. This is why those who complained about the graphic accounts of clerical abuse published last year were wrong to do so, and why the Attorney General’s refusal to answer questions about why one priest was (erroneously) cleared of rape was misguided. This is why Minister George Vella’s talk of “controlling” the media – even if this was not what he meant literally – was misplaced and worrying.
The press in Malta must continue to strive objectively to assess the successes, failures and follies of our political masters – and, yes, other powerful institutions, including the presidency, the judiciary and the Maltese Church – in a fashion which may sometimes provoke dismay. No independent newspaper editor should be willing unswervingly or unquestionably to toe a party line.
The problem with our journalism often is not that too many awkward questions are asked, but too few. Too often the heavy hand of the law, in the shape of our libel laws, stretched newspaper resources or too cosy a relationship with politicians, ensures that journalists are stopped from getting at the truth.
Speaking Truth to Power lies at the very heart of a truly free press. The press and those placed in power over us, especially politicians, will always have a close relationship of both mutual interest and hostility. Politicians and journalists are locked in an unlikely, sometimes grisly, embrace. This is not perfect but, like democracy, nobody has come up with a better system. The one non-negotiable factor, however, must be that we shall always need a brave, aggressive and free press.