Fight for Democracy. Glenda Daniels

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СКАЧАТЬ and learnt by journalists from their engagement with the news production process, and through negotiation and discussion. However, it could also be argued that perhaps even more should be left undefined and fuzzy in order to make the process of news selection more authentic. Cowling and Hamilton’s research showed that on AM Live presenters played a key role in constituting the show’s form; the mode was carefully orchestrated; and finding the ‘right’ guest was important. Therefore, their argument goes, why was there such a fuss about the SABC banning certain commentators? A point that Cowling and Hamilton raised was that, given that the paymasters were the SABC, who shared the ideas of the ANC on the developmental state and nation-building or, as the two authors put it, ‘the national project of development’, journalists nonetheless acted according to their own professional standards. A further point that they raised was that in the selection and production process there is a lot taken for granted and journalists are often not critically engaged. Then there is the question of ‘orchestration’, which implies deliberate, almost cynical and sinister, undertakings whereas in my experience of newsrooms in the last two decades, as an employee and freelancer, I found selection to be much more random than this, having much more to do with the public interest, production process, deadlines and what ‘fits a page’, rather than any coherent and conscious ideological positioning.

      There is also the question of ‘self-importance’ that Serino (2010: 110) raised, quoting Mondli Makhanya starting off a 2007 news conferences by asking (referring to his paper): ‘What will the highest court in the land say this week?’, and ‘the Sunday Times will select topics that it believes can advance the discussion of issues of relevance to South Africa’. This is interesting and thought provoking. Let’s now turn to a piece by Peter Bruce, editor of Business Day, which might show this ‘self-importance’ (but I think he was merely observing certain facts). This is an extract from Bruce’s column, Thick End of the Wedge:

      I think there’s a case to be made for newspapers not being owned by public companies at all. When you consider the contribution they make to democracy it may be worth ruling that only newspapers owned by trusts or something similar can register as newspapers with the Post Office. Having said that, it was a newspaper (City Press) owned by the mother of all local listed media companies (Naspers) which for the second or third week in a row yesterday gave us some insight into how Julius Malema has made his millions, and, in turn, added to the insight into why he feels he can’t be contained. Why? Because with R54m in your bank account no one can tell you what to do. Only, thanks to City Press, we know now that Malema hasn’t paid any tax on his ill-gotten millions and that could mean he goes to jail. Fantastic! But will it happen? […] By cheating the government, by ‘winning’ tenders to be paid for with public money even though you have no chance of meeting the conditions of the tender, you are robbing the public purse and, therefore, you are robbing the poor. Looked at that way, Malema is a thief, but he is treated like a hero by the poor (Business Day: 8 March 2010).

      Bruce was celebrating the uncovering by the media in February 2010 of the ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema having been caught with several companies registered in his name through alleged fraudulent tenders and having R54 million in his bank account while his salary was R20 000 a month. The stories showed details of fraudulent tenders, and the media called him a ‘tenderpreneur’ and remorselessly subjected him to scrutiny. This exposure is the role of the media in a democracy. The public was given the chance to question where taxpayers’ money was going – into the pockets of corrupt leaders or towards solving the country’s crime, unemployment and flailing infrastructural problems. If South Africa had a media that was ideologically in sync with the ANC, there would be no exposure of fraud and corruption. As Bruce said in the above column, it’s the exposure of cheating the government by winning tenders, and the ‘thieving’ (Business Day: 8 March 2010) that made him proud of being in the profession.

      Malema talked back. He refused identification with, or declined to appropriate, what Judith Butler had called ‘the injurious term’ (Schippers 2009: 78). He said he was just a ‘poor child’ and the media was jealous of him; he was not guilty of corruption and had nothing to hide from the South African Receiver of Revenue (SARS) (Sunday Independent: 28 February 2010). He also accused journalists of being opportunistic and having a conspiracy against him (The Times: 3 March 2010). The details of Malema’s corruption are not the focus for this discussion, but the fact that he was exposed and that there was the space for this to occur signalled something encouraging for the media’s role in this democracy. Malema also received a chance to talk back, via the media, when he claimed to be a poor child. What all this showed was the media playing the professional role according to the South African Press Code: ‘The primary purpose of gathering and distributing news and opinion is to serve society by informing citizens and enabling them to make informed judgments on the issues of the time, and, the freedom of the press allows for an independent scrutiny to bear on the forces that shape society’. There are shortcomings in the way the media operates, as noted by Cowling and Hamilton, and by Serino. For example, a lot is taken for granted and often not critically engaged with. There may be some self-importance. Nonetheless in playing this role, even in a less than perfect way, the media does hold power to account. (In my experience journalists can sometimes be lazy with a penchant for desiring ‘freebies’ more than they should. They can also be unethical but this is not commonplace. In June 2010, Ashley Smith, a Cape Argus journalist, admitted to having taken payment from Ebrahim Rasool, the former ANC provincial leader in the Western Cape, to write stories favourable to the ANC. The press body condemned this, made it a big story in the newspapers and broadcast media, and also condemned the fact that the government appeared to be going ahead with its plans to appoint Rasool to the US as ambassador.)

      Through the Malema example we can witness how secrecy can obstruct democracy by keeping the public ignorant of important information. It can be argued that there is little secrecy in South Africa because the media appears to be loyal to its professional – although we don’t know how much is hidden, of course. Reconciliation of society (à la the theories of Žižek and Mouffe) that is, unity between the media and the ANC, seems impossible, and this is good news for the unrealised democracy. Moreover, as Johannsen, quoted at the beginning of this chapter, observed, ‘Secrecy obstructs democracy by keeping the public ignorant of information’.

      NOTES

      1Johannsen RC (1994) Military policies and the state system. In Held D (ed.) Prospects for Democracy: North South, East, West. Cambridge: Polity Press.

      2Newspapers such as the Weekly Mail called themselves independent, not so much for being independent from political parties but for being commercially independent. In other words, they were not part of the big newspaper conglomerates (Perskor, Naspers, or the Argus Group), and were not profit driven.

      3Tomaselli was quoting Mzala, a writer and radical within the ANC, who penned some of the ANC’s analysis, strategy and tactics.

3.

      The media’s challenges: legislation and commercial imperatives

      The Protection of Information Bill currently before Parliament is meant to replace an apartheid-era law dating from 1982 … it would virtually shield the government from the scrutiny of the independent press and criminalise activities essential to investigative journalism, a vital public service.¹

      This chapter first examines specifically how the legislative apparatus left over from the apartheid period hindered the work of journalists but remained because it suited the democratically elected leaders of the post-apartheid era. Then, it examines how the growing uses of technology, coupled with commercial imperatives, affect the media’s role in a democracy. The argument here is that these forms of subjection and interference have had a negative impact on the ‘free’ and ‘independent’ media. Then there is the raft of legislation that has an impact on journalism, and, specifically, the ANC’s efforts to promote and explain its insidious creation, the Protection of State Information Bill СКАЧАТЬ