TVM is ‘stifling the stories that could embarrass government’

Journalists who work for TVM are allowed to do little “proper” journalism and are discouraged from pursuing stories that could potentially embarrass the government, according to past and present reporters for the national broadcasting station.
Times of Malta spoke to four reporters for this story, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of recriminations.
They all complained TVM’s news had been relegated to a government noticeboard and that proper journalism is being stifled at the Public Broadcasting Services newsroom.
There was no distinction between the station and the government, they claimed, with the fine line between the two often ignored.

“We cannot work on proper stories because the TVM news bulletin has become a government noticeboard,” one journalist complained.
“If you watch the news, it’s constantly ‘he said, she said’. News items are usually a promotion of government events.
“There’s no investigative journalism involved, and any initiative is simply discouraged.”
The situation has led to a lack of enthusiasm among journalists to pursue stories which they believe to be in the national interest.
They spoke up after it emerged that TVM was shifting its news programmes...