Public broadcasting hijacked by a Government intent on weakening media freedom in Malta
Now, from the reply to Parliamentary Question 795, tabled in the House by Nationalist MP Michael Piccinino, it emerged that over the past year, during news bulletins, TVM broadcast 532 Sound on Tape clips featuring the Prime Minister or other Government representatives. During the same period, TVM broadcast only 66 Sound on Tape clips in which the Leader of the Opposition, a member of the Opposition or a Nationalist representative were heard giving their comments.
The Partit Nazzjonalista condemns the way the Labour Government has for years controlled public broadcasting
The Partit Nazzjonalista strongly condemns the shameful state to which the Labour Government has brought the media in our country, particularly public broadcasting, which is supposed to serve the entire people but has today been reduced to yet another propaganda tool of the Government.
TVM is no longer acting as a public broadcaster but as an extension of the Government’s communications machine. Instead of informing, it selects. Instead of balancing, it conceals. Instead of giving the full picture, it paints only one reality: the one that suits the Labour Party in Government.
This is a serious abuse of State institutions. It is an abuse of public funds, and it is an insult to the intelligence of every citizen who pays for an impartial public broadcaster but is instead given Super One 2.
The Partit Nazzjonalista recalls that the Broadcasting Authority has already had to intervene in relation to the unbalanced way in which TVM is treating the presence of the Government and the Opposition in news bulletins, including the broadcasting of comments by representatives of the Government and the Opposition in what is known as Sound on Tape, or SOT.
Now, from the reply to Parliamentary Question 795, tabled in the House by Nationalist MP Michael Piccinino, it emerged that over the past year, during news bulletins, TVM broadcast 532 Sound on Tape clips featuring the Prime Minister or other Government representatives. During the same period, TVM broadcast only 66 Sound on Tape clips in which the Leader of the Opposition, a member of the Opposition or a Nationalist representative were heard giving their comments.
This is an absolute imbalance which exposes how TVM is entirely manipulated by the Government, which has reduced it to nothing more than its own noticeboard.
The Government is continuing to defend this systematic exercise to disadvantage the Opposition, as Minister responsible Malcolm Paul Agius Galea did during yesterday’s parliamentary sitting, when he kept justifying this illegal conduct by PBS despite a number of Broadcasting Authority decisions condemning PBS over this matter.
This is not journalism. This is not information. This is not public service.
This is propaganda paid for by taxpayers.
Robert Abela’s Government has not strengthened media freedom. On the contrary, it has continued to entrench a culture in which the independent media is muzzled, uncomfortable questions are left unanswered, public information is kept hidden, and public broadcasting is used as a shield for the Labour Government instead of holding it to account.
The consequence of all this is reflected in the shameful position Malta finds itself in today in the field of press freedom.
Our country, supposedly a modern European democracy, is falling further and further behind in one of the most important pillars of a free society: a free, strong and independent media.
In a country where the media is systematically weakened, it is the people who lose. Because when the Government controls the narrative, scrutiny is reduced. When scrutiny is reduced, arrogance grows. And when arrogance grows, abuses increase.
The Partit Nazzjonalista insists that PBS must be freed from the Government’s political grip. Public broadcasting must once again become the broadcaster of the people, not of the Cabinet. It must give fair space to the Opposition, to civil society and to everyone who has a right to be heard in a normal democracy.
Political responsibility for the way TVM is being manipulated falls squarely on Robert Abela. A Government that fears questions fears the truth. And a Government that fears the truth has no right to use public broadcasting and its workers to hide its own weaknesses.
The Partit Nazzjonalista will continue to use every tool at its disposal to defend media freedom, the people’s right to be fully and fairly informed, and the need for Malta to have institutions that serve citizens, not the Labour Party in government.
Justin Schembri
Shadow Minister for the Arts, Culture and National Heritage
09.07.2026
Click here for the message by Shadow Minister Justin Schembri.
