However, citizens do need protection from government, even if it isn’t clearly malevolent. Power does corrupt. The power to tax, in particular, is dangerous. Misguided policy and incompetent action are risks even under the best-run, most benevolent governments on earth.

No country’s citizens are well-served when politicians or civil servants own and run influential media organisations. That’s a clear and dangerous conflict of interests.

When can a press that is constrained by rules, laws and even the threat of banning ever be considered free. The ‘Honourable Comrade’ president’s blog seemed to be discussing government intervention (laws) to control these journalist jerks who don’t write to the party line (or don’t I read his newsletter right).

Or is this “1984″ (a book that discussed government double speak). In that case, a government controlled press would be called a free press.

Either a press is free, or it isn’t.

Hey, you may also want to watch your so easily quoted ANC credentials too. Some fools automatically credit gains to the ruling party. I’m not sure that was the case. The bulk of the fight for press freedom was carried by both journalists and editors inside South Africa, almost all of whom didn’t carry ANC membership cards. (I know, I had distant family arrested on the press freedom question)

Surprisingly (or maybe not), It was the Afrikaner in the multi-party negotiations who demanded a free press. The ANC must now regret conceding on that issue. The Stalinist/Communist system requires a controlled press and, as many of our so called “struggle comrades” got their education at Moscow University and other red institutions, they understand the ability of the press to shape perceptions. This may be why they so fear press freedom. We need to be even more vigilant lest they see this as a way to silence the dissenting voices.

Remember Donovan, This is your country, and this is my country. We BOTH have the right to be PROTECTED from a malevolent government.

I regard this discussion closed. I won’t be responding any further.

In my opinion, it is absurd that any attempt to challenge the media, are in all cases, labeled as a threat to press freedom. The media, as any public or private institution, must be called to account for its actions. It is a powerful tool and can also be abused to spread lies, either about government, particular individuals or political parties.

The ruling party, in all its pronouncements, has put press freedom as a necessary prerequisite of a democratic society. Let me quote below, the press statement released by the organisation in celebration of Press Freedom Day last year:

“The African National Congress joins all South Africans in celebrating the country’s Media Freedom Day on Thursday 19 October, and pays tribute to those who sacrificed so much and fought so hard for the achievement of the right to freedom of expression.

Media Freedom Day, which commemorates the banning in 1977 of The World and Weekend World by the apartheid government, provides an opportunity for all South Africans to declare that never again shall the right of our people to free expression be silenced by censorship or intimidation.

Thanks to the struggles of the many journalists and media workers who stood up to the apartheid government, and to those many South Africans who understood a free media to be an integral part of a new democratic society, the country’s media has the political and social space to publish and broadcast without fear or favour.

The constitution guarantees the right of every South African to freedom of expression, which explicitly includes the freedom of the press and other media. As democratic institutions have been built and democratic practice deepened, this principle has informed the legal position of the media. The dark days of state censorship, bannings, harassment and imprisonment have been emphatically and unequivocally consigned to the past.

As we celebrate Media Freedom Day in a democratic South Africa we are still faced with the challenge of building a robust, free and diverse media. We are still faced with the challenge of building a media that is fully capable of giving voice to the views and interests of all our people, especially the poor and the marginalised.

The ANC calls on all South Africans to vigorously defend the freedoms we have achieved and to deepen efforts to build a media which properly reflects the diversity of our society.”

And of course, former President Nelson Mandela, in addressing a dinner with the Foreign Correspondents Assocation, said the following:

“…Media freedom is not, has not been, and will never be under threat in our country as long as the ANC is the majority “party” in government. This is not merely because of the provisions of the constitution and Bill of Rights.

It is in the selfish interest of the ANC that we should have probing, robust and critical media. We cannot change society in a fundamental way; we cannot change the state in a fundamental way, if we do not have a questioning media that seeks to expose the weaknesses of our inherited bureaucracy, security forces, judiciary and indeed the new politicians themselves who can easily be corrupted by power or co-opted into day-to-day practices of the past.

…Freedom of speech is enshrined in our basic law of the land, as elsewhere in the world, not as an exclusive right belonging to this or the other sector or individual in society.”

NAZI GERMANY
Nazi propaganda was used to glorify Adolf Hitler and stifle dissenting viewpoints.
The dictatorship of Adolf Hitler largely suppressed freedom of the press through Joseph Goebbels’ Propaganda Ministry. As the Ministry’s name implies, propaganda did not carry the negative connotations that it does today (or did in the Allied countries); how-to manuals were openly distributed by that same ministry explaining the craft of effective propaganda. The Ministry also acted as a central control-point for all media, issuing orders as to what stories could be run and what stories would be suppressed. Anyone involved in the film industry — from directors to the lowliest assistant — had to sign an oath of loyalty to the Nazi Party, due to opinion-changing power Goebbels perceived movies to have. (Goebbels himself maintained some personal control over every single film made in Nazi Europe.) Journalists who crossed the Propaganda Ministry were routinely imprisoned or shot as traitors.

An imperfect media is far far better than Government control of the media.

First, let me re-iterate: I don’t believe any active politician should have media interests.

Second, the media does not have the powers a government has over the people. It does not have powers of subpoena, a monopoly on the use of force, the power to legislate, or the power of taxation. Therefore, the media is by definition a different, and less dangerous, animal than the government.

Third, I am by no means claiming that all media are angels. In fact, I’m often a fierce critic of how the media covers certain issues. However, in a robust free market, competing media titles keep their peers honest. If the Wall Street Journal gets it wrong, the New York Times is all over it, and vice versa. I’ll grant that this may not happen in SA as much as it should, but that’s a media quality issue, rather than an issue of principle or power. Besides for risking the censure of its peers, a media title also has to maintain the support of its readers, in order to have something to sell to advertisers. When readers defect, because they feel their interests aren’t well served, the title hurts. Again, this is a free market incentive to do better. The government is not thus regulated by the market, and its rule is not limited only to citizens who voted for it.

And finally, while it is true, for example, that limited broadcast licences exist (a failing of government, rather than the market), there are major media titles (including the proprietor of this website) that aren’t owned by “major conglomerates”. Besides, even those that are owned by big companies are subject to the very same market forces as smaller, independent titles.

The media today is owned by major conglomorates, some of whom has clear links with the coutry’s major oppostion parties, and yet this is accepted as normal. South Africa is probably the only country where media is viewed as free and fear, as long they lambast the government of the day, and leave the opposition to do as they please.

If your assertion that “the media’s primary purpose in a constitutional democracy is to protect the people from the government”, than whose role is it to protect the people from the media?

In closing, this piece, allow me to quote what the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Sydney H. Schanberg once wrote in a Washington Post editorial:

“No newspaper is eager to acknowledge its own deficiencies – or expose those of its peers (who might return the favor). Everyone has dirty linen.”

Dick Cheney is being accused of all sorts of evil because he once used to be in business. Even though he resigned before be became vice president, and ensured that no action he took could affect in any way any deferred income he was still owed. He declared all the shares he still owned, and went as far as insuring his losses, and pledging his profits to charity, so that there would be no conflict of interest. Even that wasn’t enough for his critics.

Yet when our own politicians try to buy media companies it’s dismissed as “just business”? Astonishing.

People who place institutions and individuals on glass pedestals (sorry), out of reach of public criticism and condemnation, deserve the hell they are building for their future.

“The times shows such disrespect to the presidency, it is no surprise that the role of the media had to be transformed into a mechanism to assist nation building, inform, and liberate the people.”

In other words, reporting about our macro economic vagaries and lunacy will be better served by the president’s men having a controlling stake in all the media in the country? *lol* See how you can control the internet and blogosphere, china!

Anyway, as I understood it, the article was simply about vested interests and state control over the media. Not about The Times’ inane and quite harmless gossip. Besides… there is no real disrespect evidenced that was not completely well deserved. In fact, The Times’ reporting appears pretty much like the beaten cur nuzzling the hand of his master… too afraid to bite.

“Government is not reason, it is not eloquence- it is a force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master; never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.” ~ George Washington