Malta [The Situation in the EU Member States report]

Abstract

Although the Maltese citizen is well served as to the quantity of information available in the public domain, the difficulty concerns more the quality of the information. First, political parties own too much media and unfortunately they have brought an element of divisiveness amongst the population especially during tense periods such as during an election campaign. Contrary to other states in the European Union, political parties own their own broadcasting media. It is therefore being proposed that the Broadcasting Act should be amended not to allow political parties to own their own broadcasting stations. Instead a general interest objective television station should be run by the Broadcasting Authority where political parties are provided airtime to express their views in terms of a programme schedule approved by the Authority to ensure that all political parties are given an opportunity to air their views. [Excerpt from the report]