The Forum of Maltese Unions (For.UM) has protested about the coverage it was given by PBS during the news bulletin on Tuesday evening saying that the report completely ignored the reason why it had a meeting with the Leader of the Labour Party Joseph Muscat.

Paul Pace, Secretary General of For.UM, said the meeting was called so that the Forum could present its proposals for the forthcoming electoral programme. The group presented the same document to the Nationalist Party.

Mr Pace said the PBS chose to report about questions that were put to Dr Muscat thus giving the impression that For.UM was present for the meeting for other reasons than presenting their electoral proposals. He added that ethical decency would have dictated that the news bulletin should at least have carried out the reason for the meeting between For.UM and PBS. “Having left this out viewers would have thought that the meeting was purely a political one,” he said.

The Editor and Head of News of PBS Natalino Fenech, in a letter to John Bencini, the President of For.UM, said that PBS had given extensive coverage to the proposals made by the forum on September 11 and have even interviewed Mr Bencini himself.

“The For.UM was treated in the news bulletin in the same way as any other organisation that has made proposals for the budget, that is its proposals are not repeated every time a meeting is held with a party, government organisation or another entity,” Dr Fenech said.

“The same happened on Tuesday where the For.UM said nothing new and the only news of value was the declaration made by the Leader of the Opposition,” he said.