Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1287818
13 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 13 SEPTEMBER 2020 Dr Charles Pace is a specialist in social policy and a senior lecturer at the University of Malta Ralph Cassar is secretary-general Alternattiva Demokratika OPINION Ralph Cassar A free press? Time to talk about media financing ing to their own criteria. The law says this, but immediately after arguably pulls the carpet from under this clause by saying that all services should be given to anybody notwithstanding, not making clear that the exception of religious services still applies. The distinction of religious and thus protected services should be defined clearly in the law! - Religious associations and all civil society associations to be free to restrict the use of their premises and resources for activ- ities that conform to their ethos. - Conscientious objection not to be allowed when giving a non-religious and non-protected service to a person or group hav- ing one of the protected char- acteristics, but conscientious objection is allowed where the service involves the promotion of conduct that is contrary to one's religious or moral convic- tions. Thus, a photographer or confectioner may not refuse to offer service for a same-sex mar- riage, but is allowed to invoke conscientious objection against displaying such a cake or photos in its shop-window or website. - Schools have the right to ex- pect a teacher of a religion to be an adherent to that religion. Schools have the right to select employees that promote their ethos. However, the exercise of this right is subject to propor- tionality. It is strongest for those whose position in the school in- volves a strong role in ethos pro- motion, in view of leadership po- sition or of the role of the subject taught in promoting this ethos. - Christian schools should, on their own initiative, declare that, while being faithful their religious ethos, they will practice and teach an inclusive ethos, that accepts differences, continuing to employ LGBT and other mi- norities, and respecting and leav- ing wide leeway as to what their employees do in their private lives that does not significantly conflict with the promotion of its ethos. The Christian practice of disapproving and not promoting or allowing the use of its resourc- es and premises to promote re- ligiously disapproved types of moral conduct to be accepted as part of an inclusive society, but hate speech and exclusion on the basis of social orientation as such to be against the law. The authorities should declare their acknowledgement and expecta- tion of such practice. - No particular restrictions apply to religious symbols, just as none apply to political, phil- osophical and ideological sym- bols. - Benchmarks should make sure the Bill's frighteningly crip- pling fines are not applied in a draconian, unpredictable or dis- criminatory manner. MUCH has been said and written about political party TV stations. First of all it is important to emphasise that political parties should have the resources to functionw in a democracy. In Mal- ta some resources are only dished out to the two usual suspects, PL and PN. From a couple of hun- dred thousand euros a year to the 'government' and 'opposition' parliamentary groups, to COV- ID-19 aid to their TV stations. Secondly, there is absolutely nothing wrong with parties getting their message across; what is wrong is that PL and PN are allowed to hog the airwaves. It is unacceptable and scandalous that the PL and PN are allowed to run their media companies as private entities outside the scope of the mis-named political party financing law. This is a gaping loophole, probably there on purpose, which allows the indirect financing of PL and PN through uncapped and undeclared amounts of money purportedly as advertising. The €70,000 in phantom DB adverts on Net is an example of this practice. There are ways and means to finance the policy work of registered political parties, through an amount of public financing per vote garnered in elections, with other donations being strictly limited. That way the amount of financing reflects the will of vot- ers and taxpayers. Of course, both PL and PN are in favour of such a system when in Opposition – and against it when in government. One won- ders why! It is also rather easy to make populist and uninformed arguments against such a sys- tem. The arguments against simply aid them in propping up the status quo. That is just one problem with the media in Malta. The other is whether private media can ever be really 'free'. Of course, it goes without saying that private media should be allowed to operate. Of course, it is normal for media houses to have their policies and agendas. An agenda is not a negative, if it is transparent and declared. But that does not mean that private media is some utopian oracle of 'neutrality'. Some inter- esting points are made in an OpenDemocracy article on the media situation in the UK, some of which may be food for thought in the discussion on how to have a better media landscape here in Malta (https://bit.ly/2FgVMTf). The first issue with privately-owned media is that media owners set the agenda. In the UK it is billionaires, who hound and ridicule politicians and NGOs pushing for a more social economy, for environmental justice and worker rights. "With six billionaires as majority voting share- holders for most of the UK national newspapers, it is unsurprising that they mostly supported the Conservatives in the last general election. The Conservatives reduced the top tax rate, and want to reduce it further, giving millionaires and bil- lionaires massive tax breaks." Who sets the agenda for the Maltese private press? The scenario is somewhat different here. But it is sometimes obvious that certain news items, opinion pieces and articles are refused for political reasons, and certain people are pushed and promoted because they spend loads of mon- ey on adverts. It is not the message, but the messenger. Own- ers can and do interfere. Then there is this practice in journalists sign- ing sponsored content or engaging in public relations campaigns, including government campaigns. Has nobody heard of the difference between news, opinion and PR? The answer will probably be "we have to pay wages". This brings me to the influence of advertisers on content. We have all seen articles, some spon- sored, some not, extolling the "great philanthrop- ic work and kind hearts" of dubious characters. The reason for this whitewashing becomes obvi- ous when advertorials aplenty advertising these people's businesses litter the internet portals of some media houses. The openDemocracy article says that in the UK media is so heavily reliant on corporate advertising, that this ends up compro- mising what is and isn't written about. Are there any solutions? There are no hard and fast solutions. There are multiple small solutions which can go some way in improving the me- dia landscape. The internet has surely helped in getting content out there without depending on particular companies and groups. But that also means that there is a lot of garbage content and fake content dressed up as news and the 'truth'. A more open and inclusive access model to public TV would be another step forward. Even discussion programmes on public TV are de- signed to prop up the PL and PN worldview, which in turn pander to strong economic inter- est. Other opinions are largely ignored. Even so called 'experts' are chosen to broadly be Nation- alist or Labour-leaning. Ways and means to support investigative jour- nalism must be found. The difference between public relations and news and real journalism must be crystal clear. We do not live in a utopia or perfect world, nor should we expect perfec- tion. What we should do is discuss things, uncom- fortable as they might be. Solutions may work for a period of time but then need tweaking and perfecting. That's the nature of policy and of de- mocracy. Debate, discuss, find solutions, which are always partial and incomplete. There is no one 'truth'. Party TV stations should go. Public broadcasting should be repre- sentative of the diverse society in which we live, its journalists should be protected from partisan pressures. But, harsh as it may sound, this doesn't mean that the private press is some kind of utopian an- tidote and some beacon of democracy.