Political bias

As I had to be back in the Czech Republic this week, I could only follow the last days of the local councils election campaign via the internet. Having delivered five hours of lectures yesterday afternoon at the Department of Public Economics at Masaryk University I was too exhausted afterwards to bother with Maltese politics preferring instead to have a drink with colleagues at the Faculty cafeteria. Maltese political campaigning could wait till the morning. Later in the evening, following a walk in the snow (it has not snowed so much here in 40 years and there is more to come), I needed to update my blog and read other Maltese bloggers who posted last night such as Toni Sant (currently visiting Malta for the first time in 4 years) and Immanuel Mifsud.

With both major parties concluding their campaigns yesterday I was curious to know how these last events were reported on the independent media. The online versions of the newspapers do not report anything due to an archaic law that prohibits the media from reporting political events on the eve of an election. You will not find a similar law anywhere in the civilized world. Fortunately blogging escapes the clutches of this Malta-specific regulation. It is ironical that such a law could also be extended to ban campaigning for a whole day before elections that are meant to promote the interests of our local communities.

With MaltaMedia preferring to opt out from political reporting yesterday, I had to resort to the 'safe' and 'uncontroversial' Di-ve news for Thursday's news but unfortunately yesterday's campaign reports on Di-ve were a prime example of political bias. Due to their online presence these reports can be read today and throughout election day. Di-ve published three reports about the local elections yesterday: The two reports covering PN events, PN tries to invest millions (the claim that the MLP is obstructing any EU funds is false) and later Gonzi ends PN political campaign were quite comprehensive and both accompanied by photos of the smiling PrimeMinister. On the other hand, the single report published yesterday covering the MLP campaign was very brief and had next to no content. It was a clear indication that di-ve journalists were present for the PN activities but did not bother with the MLP event.

In my view, this biased reporting by di-ve will not have much of a bearing on the election results. Most readers of the website owned by Maltacom - in which Government has a shareholding - will find it it difficult to recall the last time when Malta had a Governmnent as unpopular as this one led by PrimeMinister Gonzi. A survey conducted for the Sunday Times and published earlier this week finds that 75% of the Maltese are unsatisfied with the performance of this Government. The PN, which is in turmoil, had a disastrous campaign dominated by the stormy consequences of it's decision to withdraw candidates from two local government elections for fear of heavy defeats. On the other hand, the Malta Labour Party conducted a very slick and well crafted campaign on the same lines which earned it victory in the last local council elections and in the European Parliament elections. It will be difficult for the PN 'strategists' to dismiss another defeat as mid term blues for the Government. It is much more than that.

Anti-democratic - Wired Temples

Malta it-tieni l-aktar li jivvutaw fid-dinja

'The Government has lost all credibility and is not accountable' - interview with MLP leader

Di-ve makes up for it's sad political reporting with this useful piece by Concita Demicoli about Gnocchi with ricotta