Colossal and embarrassing errors in reporting this morning on TVM

The public service broadcaster, TVM, has made colossal and embarrassing errors in its reporting this morning.

Knowing that the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists will be making information related to the Panama Papers public today – and completely missing the fact that the published release-time is for this evening – TVM has gone to the ICIJ portal and noticed for the first time a completely different tranche of leak. This is Offshore Leaks, which has absolutely nothing to do with companies in Panama or the Panama Papers, which has been up on the portal since 2013.

TVM has mistaken Offshore Leaks – which it should have known about already three years ago if its newsroom were doing its job properly – for the Panama Papers and mixing them up, resulting in TVM’s headline this morning, which includes a screenshot of…the Offshore Leaks.

And this, if you please, is the public service broadcaster, which should be a leading light in journalism, and is instead a cringe-inducing propaganda mouthpiece for the government of the day. In Britain, the BBC is a media partner of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, and in Malta, TVM can’t even tell the difference between Offshore Leaks and the Panama Papers when looking at the ICIJ portal. Imagine then just how capable – or willing – it would be to investigate any stories were it to have a media partner like the BBC.