MaltaToday’s executive editor and online editor have pledged their journalistic work isn’t compromised as a result of their company acting as an advertising agency for the government.

“Readers should know that when a newspaper is paid to feature adverts, never does its editorial get compromised (or so we hope for the sake of the public good that journalism brings),” Matthew Vella and Kurt Sansone wrote. “We can guarantee that because the sales department that works on at least six products is also buying ad space on behalf of Infrastructure Malta, MaltaToday’s editorial is not being compromised.”

Lovin Malta revealed today that MediaToday, the company which runs the newspaper and online portal MaltaToday, is producing advertising material and buying space on news portals on behalf of Infrastructure Malta to promote the Central Link Project.

The Times of Malta later reported that a second company of MaltaToday’s managing director Saviour Balzan, Business 2 Business Ltd., has so far received €29,000 for a Transport Malta consultancy contract in 2018, while also undertaking PR services for Malta’s tuna lobby, the Federation for Malta Aquaculture Producers (FMAP).

However, Vella and Sansone argued that the editorial and business branches of the company are kept completely separate from each other.

“Today, I (Matthew) am its executive editor, while Saviour Balzan is managing editor. That means I am editor in chief, but the business and sales and operations of the newspaper (and other products) are handled by Balzan, who employs me.”

“This makes for a marathon of argument and constant disagreement, mainly instigated by yours truly with – no coyness about this – a sincere belief in what MaltaToday stands for, and the benefit that a public-minded newspaper gives by the way it informs and empowers readers.

“Readers are naturally confused because Saviour Balzan is a towering figure in the name that MaltaToday built for itself; yet the title is built by its newsroom, and the journalistic values it prides itself of cultivating.”

“Balzan can make his voice heard clearly, but as a shareholder he is often left wondering why he can be easily drowned out by the unruliness of the people he employs.”

To back up their argument, they referred to a recent editorial which was critical of the Central Link project and to an article about which trees will be lost as a result of it.

While they agreed transparency should become a major business consideration for the company going forward, they didn’t criticise the act of a media house acting as an advertising agency on behalf of the government. 

Instead, they warned that the revenues of media companies are slim and that they tend to lose staff to publicity and gaming companies, where salaries are higher.