Malta Independent nab former PN official Pierre Portelli for content direction

The former host of TVM's breakfast show TVAM has moved to Standard Publications where he has taken up managerial position.

Pierre Portelli, formerly a Nationalist Party journalist who later careered into TV with his production company Watermelon Media and briefly occupied the post of president of the PN's administrative council, will take up the post of content and business director at Standard Publications, the publishers of The Malta Independent.

"His appointment is part of Standard Publications Ltd's vision to strengthen its independent media platform to the highest possible standards in an age characterised by a fast changing communications landscape," the company said in a statement.

In September 2011, Pierre Portelli resigned from his political position as PN administrative council president shortly before taking up the coveted presenter's post on TVAM, pitching questions to a great number of MPs, celebrities and guests right into the three-month electoral campaign of 2013.

The show has now returned with his former sidekick, Joe Mifsud, but without Portelli's unique presenting skills. Instead, the presenters are Pablo Micallef and Norma Saliba, both of them hailing from a Labour Party media background. Saliba was recently seconded from a government post at the Malta-EU Action Steering Committee to the PBS newsroom, where she formerly worked before leaving for Favourite Channel. Before joining PBS she was a One TV journalist.

A former Net News journalist, Pierre Portelli went on to become head of news at the PN television station after Nationalist re-election in 1998 but resigned that post in February 2004 to dedicate more time to his private company, Watermelon Media.

Portelli had formed part of the core group that devised the Nationalist Party's EU referendum and electoral campaigns in 2003.

Standard Publications is owned by a group of companies that includes C & H Bartoli, Miller Distributors - who print the newspaper - and First Gemini plc, a shareholder in Tigné Point developers Midi plc.