I am not all that educated and qualified on the journalism profession but I am certain I read somewhere that the media provides the mirror off which society sees itself. so I take this template and overlay the South African media landscape and a voice says to me 'oh really?'. Media commentators and other prominent people, including those in our beloved ruling party bemoan the slow pace of transformation in the media ownership stakes and the accompanying anti-transformation opining in the printed media. Or so they say. a very few years ago, an alleged attempt by some well politically connected businessmen to take over the Avusa group made hysteric front page news in the Sunday papers including the Avusa flagship Sunday Times. at least to me, the headline seemed intended to evoke an emotional negative reaction to the alleged takeover bid. more on that later. still, this paranoid reaction to businessmen - irrespective of how well politically connected they may be - engaging in what is routine business practice, enquiring about opportunities to make more money or maybe even just to indulge the patriotic taste buds in being seen to be doing something about the anti-transformation eye sore that is the South African print media, looked like a thinly veiled attempt at protecting a much more sinister reality. Taking a look at the readers’ feedback to the related stories reveals that the strategy worked very well too. This is also confirmed by the general commentary to the arrival of the Gupta backed and government friendly the new age. I read them online and have yet to actually see a printed copy - I am made to believe they are distributing already - but they seem to deliver a balanced account of their news. at least to me.
lastly, the commentary and narrative on the protection of information bill and the media appeals tribunal was fought, at least from where I stand, on the wrong premise. Freedom of the media. The people who died fighting for media freedom among others, where made to look like they are against media freedom. And what about the legitimacy of this media? What am I missing here?
Let’s go back to this mirror of the society thing. What is not obvious about this concept is in its application through the prism of personal ideological preference and by implication organisational editorial preference. This is not supposed to compromise editorial integrity. But it definitely has a bearing on HOW the news are NARRATED and therefore on how these news will be RECEIVED. I am assured - especially now with the internet where I have proven it for myself and everybody else is welcome to do so - that media outlets subscribe to a particular ideology which is manifested in its editorial positions. And depending on the regime in power, these media outlets would interpret the actions and messages of this regime in terms of how it advances the said media house's preferential ideological agenda. The difference about the South African media is that bar the state owned SABC and the New Age, we do not have a transparent political position with our media outlets. This situation is probably engineered to elucidate a facade of independence. This in turn is supposed to conjure in the mind of the media consumer an image of a trustworthy and unbiased source of the news. And this is actually crux of it, it IS biased.
The transformation debate is not affecting the newsroom in a manner worthy of being mentioned in its editorial position. and this is just my personal opinion. at least not as far as it affects matters to do with the media appeals tribunal. I have personally not looked at how other countries deal with this, ie media representativity(sp). Maybe because it is not an issue for them. But it makes perfect sense to me that should the weak not be able to protect themselves against tyranny and anarchy - which can find expression in a variety of ways, including libel - it is the governments’ task to do so. Now we may vary in the mechanics of how the government chooses to do so, but I do find it very lazy to scream 'media freedom' when the elephant in the room is profit! Media outlets are private companies pursuing a profitable return and should not be paraded as paragons of transparency at the cost of accountability!
Our racially divided history is not something that will go away. We have to deal with it and confront it in all its glorified shamefulness but for gods sake we have to move on. And there is the trick right there. What do I mean by moving on? It is more out of viewing the present and future through our racially tainted glasses that we fail to see life for what it is and what it is supposed to be. In many cases to our own detriment and frustrations. We speak to and address each other as either members of the white or the Black political parties it makes a mockery of the secret ballot. This is serving as a formidable hurdle in the normalisation of racial relations. And by normalising racial relations I am not talking about an inter-racial romance from out of the blue with us sitting around a bonfire singing ‘kumbaya’. I am here referring to an honest interaction between people who share a country. It entails the hardship, the love, the disputes, the victories and the pain and all else that signify a healthy inter-racial interaction like anywhere else in the world or even better. It encompasses the instances of intolerability with tolerance. In that scenario ‘Mrs Botha’ is not scared to express her prejudices in public to be ostracised like that writer Annelie Botes was the other day. That is how she feels! It is wrong but that is how she feels. We need to live out our racial prejudices in the only way that will guarantee they fade away with time. Live it openly. It is not a sustainable thing anyway and it should evaporate like all other antiquated ideas from the past. What has this to do with our media? Everything! Even before the skin tone of the ownership echelons is considered, our media has a distinct euro centricity about it. Ok , whiteness! There, I said it! A number of reports undisputedly back this up including the right wing sentiment of the analysis and the fact that the majority of reporters and journalist in this country are white. In fact, bar a very few, black journalist are widely seen to sound anti black to assume a position of independence. Yeah, I said that too! In the months leading up to the ANC Polokwane conference in 2007 the media narrative was either Mbeki would retain the presidency of the ANC or someone between Sexwale and Ramaphosa would emerge as the compromise candidate. This was in sharp contrast to what I heard in the phone in radio shows of the predominantly Black radio stations where Zuma was doing very well in the popularity stakes. And how come only the impoverished were left with the taste of injustice in their mouths after the failed rape trial against Jacob Zuma?
The reporting of local political battles as service delivery protest is also a case in point. It sounds very much like a talking point for the opposition. It is downright politicking to me. The government has made a lot of mistakes. Make no mistake! But to call demonstrations by the unemployed youth service delivery protest? These people want jobs. The same jobs that Jimmy Manyi said were given en masse to White women to avoid giving them to these guys should have been the talking point here. Why did it not occur to a single reporter that there where so many people in the townships at that time of the day? Every other day? If you are a shack dweller trust me your priority is not a pot hole like your compatriot in Sandton, it is putting food on the table tonight! I am not by any stretch of the imagination saying conditions are perfect. A lot needs to be done. But this should not conceal the gap of media legitimacy here on our shores. It is a leap of logic to say our media IS a mirror of society!
In conclusion, our media outlets need to declare their political ideologies for us the consumers and users to make up our own minds knowing what angle we have been given exactly. It is cheating, if not rubbing wool over our eyes and creepy for a biased report to sneak up on me under the disguise of impartiality. Also, we need more players in this space to better reflect the multiplicity of opinion cognisant with our history and biases. That is who we are. And that identity need to be given the air it deserves to fade away peacefully into history. We cant push it into oblivion. I personally think our media will have a big role to play in regard to this seeing it is the mirror through which we see ourselves. And that, frankly, would be the only way to defend our fledgling democracy against kleptocratic officials who seek to use these gaping wounds in our media to conceal those dirty fingers in the cookie jar! Given to me in that way, it better reflects what i would call MY society.
