Cassola Raises Concern Over New Alliance Between Legacy Media, PL And PN
Independent MEP candidate Arnold Cassola has raised the alarm over a new alliance between a group of independent and politically-owned media houses whose goals include raising funding from the government.
Cassola posed the following five questions.
1. Is this an indirect way for the government, with the excuse of helping independent media, to finance and strengthen the PL and the PN bankrupt media, utilising public funds?
2. How is this media lobby going to contribute to more transparency and more protection of third and independent political voices?
3. Will this lobby be now ever more dependent on the whims, adverts and financial aid of the government of the day for survival?
4. Is the real aim here to save from bankruptcy the PN and the PL media and strengthen them, thus stifling even more the opinions of third political voices?
The “Association of Media Owners” was formed by Allied Newspapers (which runs the Times), MediaToday (which runs MaltaToday and Illum), Standard Publications (which runs The Malta Independent), GWU-owned Union Print, PN-owned Media.Link, and PL-owned Sound Vision.
The announcement wasn’t given much prominence by any of the media houses involved and the Times of Malta waited a whole day before publishing anything about it at all.
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