The time has come for the national broadcaster to be independent of government, Nationalist Party leader Bernard Grech said today.

He was speaking to journalists after meeting the Broadcasting Authority members, a day after he urgently requested to meet them to discuss issues related to the way Public Broadcasting Services is treating the Opposition, while serving as a propaganda machine for the government.

PBS should no longer fall under the remit of a minister, he said. It should not remain as a government department and should carry out its functions independently of it.

Castille should relinquish control over PBS, Grech said, adding that the government was going to such extents as employing people to control its editorial line.

“The national broadcaster has not only failed to report certain news items but reported them incorrectly,” he said. “The Maltese public deserves impartial and proper reporting.”

He criticised a letter issued by PBS to inform all producers they must submit the topic and individuals they planned to interview 14 days prior to the programme being aired. 

“This conditions journalists, and it is not acceptable,” he said.

In a post on Facebook, the PN leader said that he insisted that the authority must comply with its legal obligations of ensuring that PBS is impartial, truthful and balanced. The time for using airtime and presence as measurements of impartiality are over, as the public broadcaster has become a tool in the hands of the Government, as a station of power that deliberately twists news items and blatantly lies in such a way that stifles and twists the Opposition’s message.

"This is why I insisted that the Broadcasting Authority should, through its own volition, ensure that the right of every citizen that the public broadcaster delivers news in a balanced and correct manner, without partisan manipulation from Castille, is protected.

"I insisted with the authority that in a democracy, it has an indispensable role to play to safeguard democracy, transparency and the right to correct information. Therefore I am not excluding any further action, including legal, if this situation persists," he said.