PN accuses PBS of bias and acting as ‘puppet of the government’

The Nationalist Party has accused the Public Broadcasting Station (PBS) of being a "puppet of the government" due to imbalanced coverage. Speaking outside the PBS headquarters in Gwardamanġa on Friday, the PN’s secretary general, Charles Bonello, director of communications, Nathaniel Attard, and Claudette Buttigieg raised concerns about what they described as "trying to silence the party" Attard said he had no issue with PBS journalists and works well with them, but argued that the news content showed a "total imbalance" against the PN. “The public broadcaster is the government's puppet,” he said.

“When the news is aired we see a total imbalance against the Nationalist Party.” Attard pointed to a recent episode of the television programme Popolin, which featured both Prime Minister Robert Abela and Opposition Leader Bernard Grech. The PN had hoped for a live debate between the two leaders, but instead, they were interviewed separately.

“This programme would have been totally unbalanced if it wasn’t for the diverse interventions we made,” Attard said. He said that Grech’s interview was aired late, at 10:30 p.m.

, and that Grech had to wait for Abela, who arrived 45 minutes late. He also flagged alleged difficulties in allowing PN’s pre-selected audience members to enter the studio despite having agreed on their presence with the broadcaster. Furthermore, Attard claimed that only 15 minutes of Grech’s hour-long interview were initially uploaded online, while the full interview with Abela was made available.

“It took us to complain for the entire episode to air online,” he said. Charles Bonello also criticised how PBS structures its news bulletins, claiming the Opposition's reactions only appear well after other news bulletins and a break, not directly after the government's news bulletin. “We can’t have a public station, which is paid by the public, that only serves the government of the day,” Bonello said.

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