ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe has appealed for calm when discussing the ANC’s proposed media tribunal and not go on the offensive.
On the contrary we all should, whether we are in and of the news media or not, forcefully resist this attempt to curtail freedom of speech.
Let’s be blunt. Whether it comes in the form of a media tribunal or the provisions of proposed protection of information laws, what we are talking about is censorship.
It is a matter of freedom of expression and the right of citizens to know.
We, the public, should not let the newspapers in particular collude in their own gradual castration.
As a journalist, I saw the effect of self-censorship often during the apartheid past and the way it hurts, not newspapers or journalists, but the rights of ordinary people.
I have a specific memory of how self-censorship operates. I think back to the sub-editors’ room of the Weekend World in 1976.
The World newspaper was owned by the liberal Argus printing group, ultimately owned by Anglo American Corporation. Working as a sub-editor, I had sent off for printing a page with an article detailing South Africa’s first military incursion into Angola. It was news to me and I thought the readers of the Weekend World might like to know about it.
I forget the exact process now, but a senior, white editor had to sign off all pages. He rushed in to the subs’ room and ordered me to replace the article immediately because it broke the law.
The Defence Act or some other piece of legislation demanded that all stories about the military had to be cleared by the SA National Defence Force before publication, and the SANDF had instructed that no news was to be published about the Angolan operation.
We were in effect keeping the news of South Africa’s illegal, undeclared war in Angola secret from the public, among them the fathers and mothers of the white conscripted soldiers who were being sent to fight in Angola alongside rebel forces. The senior journalist would have justified his action by reference to the consequences for the newspaper if the story appeared.
But his action was just part of a long-standing process of keeping the news media tame.
He was one of a cadre of conservative journalists who believed they were moral and professional, but whose co-operation with the authorities was wrapped up in their careers.
A knowledge of the plethora of regulations about what could be published and what could not was part of a journalist’s tool kit, and an expectation that these should be followed to the letter was part of the job.
As a young sub-editor I learned a hard lesson about the reality of press freedom in South Africa. The government eventually closed The World anyway when it stopped being so cautious. You cannot co-operate with tyranny in the hope of getting a little more freedom.
The example of the censoring of the story about the secret Angolan operation showed how you could work as a journalist on newspapers that ostensibly opposed apartheid but were heavily censored and yet live with a clear conscience.
The journalists at the Weekly Mail newspaper, formed nine years later, took another tack, which was to stretch the boundaries of obedience and thumb a nose at those same authorities.
Faced with the same situation they would have worked out a way to let the public know that they were being prevented from publishing something of importance.
Along with other “alternative” newspapers, they focused on publishing uncomfortable truths, challenging the apartheid authorities to enforce their censorship rather than rely on self-censorship.
There is a strong belief that had all the opposition, English-language newspaper groups stood firm at an early stage and rejected co-operation with the increasingly absurd demands about what could and what could not be printed, censorship would not have worked. The government would have been forced to back down, or taken steps so extreme it would have hurried along the fall of the regime.
The suspicion at the time was that those who complied actually found aspects of apartheid rather agreeable, and preferred mowing their perfect lawns to thinking about what was happening in the townships and certainly preferred not to upset the government.
So now what is it exactly that the ANC wants from the news media? Some agreement on a mechanism to stop the news media making the ANC uncomfortable in some areas in exchange for freedom-to-publish in other areas?
Let’s not be distracted by a couple of corrupt journalists who accepted pay for taking sides. If this is common, as is claimed, no regulation is going to prevent it. Competition among news media is the only protection, along with vigilance by editors who don’t want the very worth of their organisations’ reporting questioned.
Many journalists would rather say “okay, take your best shot” rather than collaborate again. Impose a media tribunal, if you like, and bear the national and international opprobrium. Don’t expect us to help you put censorship in place, or give it any legitimacy. Even those among us who are outraged by the conduct of some our colleagues will smother our disagreements for the sake of solidarity and defence of freedom.
A media tribunal will have an unintended effect. There is, in a sense, an information market, where restricting supply of real news increases its value. The news will come out, and when it does it will be more damaging than ever. If you want to dull the news down, make information freely available.
A story about cabinet ministers driving cars worth more than R1 million is sensational, but not half as sensational as when someone has tried to keep it a secret.
It is embarrassing to government because instinctively we know it is wrong for supposed servants of the people to indulge in opulence when many of those they are supposed to serve are desperately poor. And it does not matter whether such luxury is sanctified by government handbooks or by custom here or anywhere else in the world.
If it were not wrong, publishing it would not matter in the least, and those who did publish such stories would be laughed at. The way to stop damaging stories appearing in the news media is to stop supplying the material for it through actions that other people might think questionable, not to insist we all keep quiet about these things.
Censorship or self-censorship will also give some journalists, made lazy by the free flow of information, purpose once again. Others will be happy to toe the line.
Moreover, no censorship can target only one form of media: why should newspapers be especially regulated rather than books, websites, plays and other forms of mass communication?
What would happen if newspapers fell silent on certain issues is that other media would be opened up. Desktop publishing, a novelty in the 1980s, allowed the alternative news media to flourish. Other technology will do the same thing now, whether it is the internet or cellphones.
The implication is that censorship cannot work without curbing the freedom of speech of the individual. If the government is determined to go down this path, the real loser will be the ordinary citizen, whose right to know will be curtailed on the one hand, and whose right to speak freely limited on the other.
First you have the idealists and they set up democracy.
Then come the politicians and they find democracy inconvenient so they restrict it.
After them come the thugs and they replace democracy with something like the system democracy replaced.
So far, democracy in SA hasn’t even lasted 20 years. Look north to get an idea what’s coming next.
Every publication and every reader who values his right to know what’s happening in this country should oppose the Media Tribunal and the current Protection of Information Bill with every means at their disposal. We should not yield an inch when it comes to defending our democratic rights. If necessary there should be a large scale campaign of civil disobedience. The ANC has a big surprise coming.
Superbly expressed, Reg – thank you!
It appears that Mantashe is once again – as with the destruction of the Scorpions – at the forefront of this new onslaught on democratic freedom. In the case of the Scorpions, rumour had it that his was a pre-emptive strike – getting them before they got him. Whether this is true or not will probably never be known, as the investigation into his affairs lies buried with the Scorpions themselves.
This time however, I am inclined to believe that there is an even stronger incentive to muzzle the Press than merely avoiding constant revelations of malpractice. The ANC now faces approaching municipal elections having fared somewhat dismally in recent bi-elections. As they have succeeded in purging themselves of most of their members suspected of a three-digit IQ, they now lack the capacity to perform adequately in the areas of administration and service delivery. Their only option therefore is to shut off the Public’s access to accurate reporting on the ANC’s performance (or lack thereof), and to replace it instead with massively pro-ANC propaganda. Rather as the nice neighbour on our northern borders has tried to do. Hence the indecent haste with which they are attempting to steamroller this latest travesty into law.
Mr Mantashe wants us to be patient, non-confrontational and to discuss the media tribunal ‘calmly and constructively’. Well Mr Mantashe, I would as soon try to reason with an armed robber who is busy smashing down my front door.
Well said. Your story took me back to those years of: sell out or suffer the consequences. The one thing KGB agent Mantashe forgets in all this is that a kid with a cell can let the world knows what is happening these days. Mark my words, the next step will be Chinese-style Internet bans.
You media people want to watch over the govt but you dont want to be watched over yourselves?What are you?Some kind of God?Do you really believe in this rubbish of yours of self regulation?
Ok.The govt cannot self regulate but you can?Who annoited you?Yourself?I have never heard such non-sense in my life.
Well said Reg. If the ANC want to control the media then it should be imposed by force and not squeaked in via the quisling behaviour we remember from the past, whereby the media are ‘encouraged’ to collaborate in their own oppression… We already know what that meant.
What you didn’t mention was that information starvation warped the economic environment by removing the normal signals a free economy sends off to prospective investors. The outcome for the Nats was economic stagnation, decline and ultimately their capitulation.
In today’s more open planet the effects of information starvation would simply be to remove us from the playing field altogether by competitors envious of our temporary success and elated at our ability to shoot both feet.
Our economy is already close to stagnation. Other countries are emerging from the Great Recession and we are bogged down… a move to repression, which is what is implied with these laws, will simply eliminate the ‘good’ investment climate, and we will become dependent on the ‘bad’ investment peddlars… as the Nats were.
The people will suffer again and again for the sins of their new fathers. Eventually they will have to lose the freedom to vote too, in case, like those voters in Zim and Kenya they choose some other Party than the ‘chosen ones’.
@ Reg “The way to stop damaging stories appearing in the news media is to stop supplying the material for it…”
That is the nub of the argument. The Press/Media don’t MAKE news; the ANC in government MAKE THE NEWS by daily transgressions of the Constitution and Parliamentary Ethics,
If the ANC were to ‘self-police’ its members, there would be NOTHING TO REPORT.
News is information about what the government is doing–or failing to do–everyday. WE THE PEOPLE are entitled to that information because WE own this country, not the ANC.
The ANC’s greatest failure has been to equate itself with government. The ANC is only the political party; it has no inherent right to govern. WE THE PEOPLE have the RIGHT to CHOOSE how we wish to be governed and who we want to have carry that out that service for us.
The ANC does not Rule SA; the Constitution does. And the ANC are required to conform to the provisions of the Constitution. The only way WE THE PEOPLE have of knowing what the Ministers and other public servants are doing is through the PRESS/MEDIA.
The Press is mandated by the Constitution to be FREE. That means NO CENSORSHIP OF ANY KIND.
If the Press knowingly report an untruth, the people affected have recourse through the courts, as President Zuma himself has done on several occasions.
A Free Press and an Independent Judiciary protect against abuses of power.
No Press, No Democracy. Simple.
“You media people want to watch over the govt but you dont want to be watched over yourselves”
No, Lesetja. Anyone in government is welcome to watch the press, simply buy buying a newspaper on the way to work.
What’s being proposed is that ministers should be able to decide that certain facts aren’t suitable for the eyes of the people who elected them. This is a much stronger power.
“I have often said that the media are a mirror through which we can see ourselves as others perceive us, warts, blemishes and all. The African National Congress has nothing to fear from criticism. I can promise you, we will not wilt under close scrutiny. It is our considered view that such criticism can only help us to grow, by calling attention to those of our actions and omissions which do not measure up to our people’s expectations and the democratic values to which we subscribe.”
– Nelson Mandela
“Freedom can never be taken for granted. Each generation must safeguard it and extend it. Your parents and elders sacrificed much so that you should have freedom without suffering what they did. Use this precious right to ensure that the darkness of the past never returns.”
– Nelson Mandela
Lesetja, it’s nothing to do with status, divinity, anointing etc. Government is not divine or anointed. It is elected to do a job. If it messes up it needs to be held accountable. By us, by the public. In that sense we are all media people.
In these technologically advanced times, the intended repression of embarassing stories cannot be achieved with the relative ease that the authorities envisage.
This is a slippery slope. Once we set foot on it, only two outcomes are possible: a fullscale police state on one hand, or a painful and embarrassing defeat and loss of face for the would-be censors.
For God’s sake, why go down this road?
Sorry. I said “..the intended repression of embarassing stories cannot be achieved with the relative ease that the authorities envisage.”
This is inaccurate. I should say “..with the relative ease that the authors of the ANC proposals envisage.”
@Reg.
We are now trapped in our own version of democracy, which exists only in the constitution.
The difference between now and then is that the world will not listen to us when we say we are in intellectual prison.
@Shiobhan – Right on! Can you feel it? The revolution is here at last! The ANC simply had to push all free people far enough.
@Jonathan Marsden – Timely recall! It is about time someone remind the current bunch of power-drunk politicos who got them as far as this, and at great cost. I don’t think they will wake up in time though. Power should never be bestowed, but always earned.
The ANC!! These blokes do not want to lose power. They are well greased up with the affluence of ruling over a majority which has not yet figured them out very well. Poor people, under the ANC are clamoring for the promised riches which their leaders show-off in the poor ghettoes and so forth when they visit their forlorn relative who are left staring agog at the effects of the Gravy Train, which blinds them from their own reality. The ANC wants to do what The apartheid regime did to the media. In many ways, one should recall the comment that Mantashe made that: “No one is bigger than the ANC”. He made this statement on his visit to London. One of the advantages because we ordinary folks are busy being intoxicated by “apartheid hangover” and now of late, ‘World Cup withdrawal’ syndrome, and have not put our grievances together to form a Black and White united Front against the hooligans, ANC. The world will not listen to us when we say we are in an intellectual prison, according to ‘@tottie’, is true. I also think we should all listen to each other before we can get the approval of the world. Right now, we are facing the mugging of our media, well… what are we going to do about it? We need to bring the Constitution to life… we need to see ourselves as one people(South Africans) we need to preserve our vote and democracy, my two-cents…
This whole story about media tribunal just indicate ANC is not even planning to stop taking the citizens seriously,and should they care about what the media(Press) say if they doing the right things?To me it seems like ANC government is preparing its playground,where they will be able to play a game without an official. The answear to this is simple,just stop doing things that affect you brand negatively.Finish and Klaar.
Freedom is not divisible just like you cannot be partially pregnant.
@ Lesetja “You media people want to watch over the govt but you dont want to be watched over yourselves?”
I am sure you represent the views of many SA-cans whose only experience of government was the fascist apartheid state. The Nats STAYED IN POWER BECAUSE THEY CONTROLLED THE PRESS, Lesetja, Do you really want the ANC to behave like the Nats?
If you see the ANC at your rescuer, you would be sensitive to any criticism of the party. However, the right to oversee the government is OUR right, Lesetja–no matter which political party is in power. But we citizens have to earn a living and take care of families, etc. and we can’t be present in Parliament or at government department meetings, etc. It is the job–and the Constitutional responsibility–of the Press to do that for us and to report what the government does IN OUR NAME.
When government Ministers allow crooked tenders, squander their budgets on 5-star hotels whilst their official residences sit empty, etc., they are bending, twisting, and breaking the law. If you or I did that, Lesetja, we would be arrested and tried in court!
If the Press could not report on such abuses of power by the government, we would not know that we had elected dishonest people to public office.
The Press is not there to please us; it is there to inform us.
In a Democracy, ignorance is definitely not bliss; knowing the truth is.
@ Jonathan, Peter, X-cepting. Spot on. Bravo!