Media experts Fr Joe Borg and Laurence Grech were critical of the government’s proposed media reform bills as they gave their analysis over how the media sector has changed over the last five years to The Malta Independent on Sunday.

Also contacted by this media house, former Foreign Affairs Minister Evarist Bartolo, who was a journalist and a lecturer in journalism for many years, said that the government risked undermining its credibility if it didn’t consult on bills intended to reform the media sector.

The bills were tabled in Parliament earlier this month after a Committee of Media Experts, set up following the public inquiry into the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia, drew up a list of recommendations. After widespread criticism, the government has instructed the Committee of Media Experts to hold, if it deems fit, a public consultation exercise and, if needs be, submit an amended list of recommendations to the government. Prime Minister Robert Abela promised to keep the media bills pending until such an exercise is completed. No commitment has been made on the government’s part that the bills will be changed, while the Nationalist Party continues to insist that the bills should be completely withdrawn.

The future of the media is a subject of debate as the fifth anniversary of the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia is commemorated today. Her assassination rocked the country and changed Malta’s media sector as a whole ever since.

Borg, Grech and Bartolo gave their insight on how exactly the Maltese media landscape has changed, and also gave their views on one of the hottest topics as of late: the government’s proposed media reform bills.

Five years on from Daphne’s death: How has the media landscape changed?

Contacted for his views, former editor and an expert in the media sector Fr Joe Borg agreed that the local landscape had in fact changed in the last five years.

Previously, the media – particularly the print media – had been moving towards a liberal, Anglo-Saxon model of journalism, Borg explained.  After Daphne’s murder however, they moved towards advocacy journalism, meaning that parts of the media sector were now actively advocating for certain things such as good governance and the environment.

Borg noted how during the 2019 political crisis which followed the arrest of Yorgen Fenech in connection with Daphne’s murder, the English language newspapers all even backed demonstrations calling for the resignation of then Prime Minister Joseph Muscat.

“Journalism is for the public good. It doesn’t belong to the journalist: we are servants of the right for information,” he said.

Asked for his views meanwhile, former long-time Sunday Times of Malta editor Laurence Grech said that Daphne’s mantle has fallen onto a few individuals who have bravely carried on with her investigations, with one team – the Daphne Project – even inheriting her name to continue investigating.

That team has uncovered a number of scandals since Daphne’s death, with stories and once secret deals continually being uncovered.

“Daphne’s work has not been in vain, in the sense that her mantle has been successfully taken over – not to the extent of her own work, but generally speaking her mission has continued to prevail,” Grech said.

He said that Daphne’s death inspired other investigative journalists to continue her work.

The government’s proposed media reform bills: ‘Does the government want to overpromise and under-deliver?’

One of the hottest topics as of late regarding the media sector pertains to a set of bills which the government has tabled in Parliament to reform the legal framework around the media.  They have become subject to criticism both for their contents and for the fact that the government initially refused to open a public consultation on them.

Both Borg and Grech were asked for their views on the bills, but so was former Foreign Affairs minister and journalist Evarist Bartolo who, up until last March, formed part of the government.

Bartolo agreed that the government must reopen consultation on the bills, stating that it risked undermining its credibility and credentials if it doesn’t.

The Labour Electoral Manifesto 2022 obliges the government to strengthen the local media’s role as the Fourth Pillar of Democracy, he said. Pledges 915 to 920 include the promise to embed constitutionally the indispensable role of the media to have an effective and functional democracy, he said. Pledge 917 commits the government to consult inclusively and meaningfully the whole of the media sector on how to protect journalists in their work in a media free from fear and favour. Pledge 916 commits the government to protect journalists and civil society from having libels used against them by powerful people to intimidate them and shut them up, he said.

“Does the government want to overpromise and under-deliver and undermine its credibility and credentials? If the government does not want to do so it must reopen the consultation with all involved as it promises in Pledge 917,” he added.

Borg meanwhile was particularly critical of the reforms which have been tabled by the government in recent days, calling them “strong on words but weak on substance.”

“We have lost a golden opportunity to fix the sector’s legal framework,” he lamented.

He had an analogy to describe the proposals: “Imagine going to a doctor and they tell you that you have 10 illnesses, but that they can cure eight of them.  You would be happy because that’s the majority of them – but then you realise that the remaining two are the two which will kill you.  This is what the bills are.”

He criticised that fact that the recognition of journalism as a key pillar of society in the constitution was being done in Chapter Two, which cannot be brought before a court, rather than Chapter Four, which can.

Borg also said that what is being proposed to face Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) “doesn’t even reach the minimum requirements set out by the Council of Europe’s directive from last April.”

Furthermore, he said that the obligation for authorities to provide information is not strong, and noted that the government even by its actions today does not wish to follow the principles of the right to information.

This was a point which Grech latched onto as well.

Grech said that it the proposals contain no reference to what he described as “an essential part of investigative journalism”: freedom of information.

“Requests from journalists are regularly stone-walled.  That has to change because we are in a free society.  There is a Freedom of Information Act which is not working properly, so I think that there there’s a lot which has to be done as far as journalistic freedom is concerned,” Grech said.

He said that progress has been made in recent years, citing the removal of criminal libel, but reiterated that a lot more needs to be done.

“Journalists are still being stone-walled for information, and for our society to be free, the fourth pillar of democracy has to be free as well.  I think that the work being done by journalists is courageous and long may it continue to be so,” he said.

So what needs to change?

Borg listed a number of fundamental changes which he believes need to be made in order to strengthen the media landscape as a whole.

The first of those is to change the composition of the Broadcasting Authority.  Currently, the BA’s board is made up of people appointed by the government and the Opposition – something Borg said was fine back when the reform was made, but is outdated in the present day because of the strong civil society voice which has developed in recent years.

He said that the board should be chosen in a different way in order for political parties, civil society, and experts in the sector to be represented on it.

Following that, he said, the next major reform is to the Public Broadcasting Services (PBS), which he said should cease to be an entity which belongs to the government.

“As long as it belongs to the government, every time the government changes there will be an imbalance. We need to change the model,” he said, citing a model used in Sweden where the public broadcaster is owned by a foundation and funded by a specific tax, thereby giving it financial independence, as an example.

“If you have a fair and independent PBS, then you don’t need political party-owned television stations.  But with PBS as it is today, an Opposition leader has to be crazy to shut down his television station,” he said.

He said that there has to be a discussion on the financial aspect of the media as well, particularly on how the government distributes the millions it spends in advertisements – where he questioned whether the money is being distributed fairly or not.

He also suggested the introduction of a transparent subsidy to help print media.

This is put into particular perspective with a snippet of analysis from Grech on how people’s use of the media has changed in recent years: he said that people nowadays are in a hurry and prefer to look up the news on websites and online information rather than seek out traditional newspapers.

“That is a trend which will continue unabated for the next few years, and we will eventually see the death of the newspaper as we have known it so far,” he added.