The Broadcasting Authority has upheld a complaint filed by ADPD after Labour Party media arm ONE TV failed to report the party’s news conference on the hospitals’ concessions scandal.

In a statement, the authority said that in its decision, it ordered ONE to air a report on the party’s press conference on 30 March, almost three weeks after the conference was held.

The party said that the report on the press conference was indeed carried by ONE TV on Thursday night.

In their complaint, ADPD had said that ONE was systematically neglecting to cover the party’s press conferences and statements, and in turn failing in its obligation to be impartial.

ONE had defended itself, maintaining that it has full discretion over their editorial line and reports on ADPD statements when they feel it is of news value.

In its decision, “the Broadcasting Authority emphasised that in the light of the controversy surrounding the hospitals’ contract it finds it difficult to understand how ONE has failed to find any news value in ADPD’s declarations which by its own admission have been systematically ignored since November of last year.”

The ADPD-The Green Party Chairperson Carmel Cacopardo had asked the Broadcasting Authority to issue without delay the necessary directives to ensure that the impartiality that each broadcast media station in Malta is obliged to ensure is implemented.

He was referring to the Constitutional Court decision on broadcasting which recently underlined that the obligations of impartiality apply to all broadcast media and not just to public services.

Cacopardo welcomed this decision, saying that “it is a step in the right direction to ensure that political party stations broadcast impartial news and ADPD will continue to insist that this is carried out by all,” Cacopardo said.