Minister Blade Nzimande probably gets nightmares about a non-existing “liberal anti-majoritarian offensive against the ANC, its alliance partners and the government”. His latest nightmare, shame, was particularly violent and has now “taken the form of a regime change agenda”.
What prescription does he propose for his hallucinations? A media appeals tribunal (again), which he asserts (again) will better regulate our biased media rather than relying on the media to regulate itself.
First, Nzimande gives the media way too much credit. Reporters, columnists, sub-editors, editors and other print media staff are too insecure and scared even, in fact, to gather in some secret location and plot the overthrow of the ANC-led government with their ink and paper. If you don’t believe me, just go to a press conference or, even better, to a major conference by any political party.
Journalists are awkward around each other like kids who weren’t popular at school, and rush to their laptops, alone and not as a group, to file their reports after each event. (Have you seen lonely TV images of solipsist Carien du Plessis buried in her phone as she tweets without group-instructions?) Journalists may chow free food together and down a few beers in one corner, but they are a pretty tame, and in many ways apolitical, bunch.
I think Nzimande confuses the kind of calculated party political interests by many print media outfits in places like the UK with what happens in South Africa.
Our print media is not involved in the kind of fanciful plotting the ANC-led alliance imagines. I dare the minister to give concrete examples to the contrary that show a pattern differing to what I am describing.
Then there’s the assumption that the ANC is universally hated by the media and that this is reflected in local print media output. Again, this is a premise loosely asserted rather than backed up with textual evidence. It is very hard to know who gets the least favourable coverage among the ANC, the EFF and the DA, to take the biggest three parties.
One could probably do a decent piece of fact-based analysis to determine the answer, but nothing in what Nzimande has said about the local media is rooted in that kind of study. He is reporting what he sees, and no doubt if you ask, say, Julius Malema, he would feel that the media is least fair to the EFF, often and consistently reducing it to a party of anarchists with no substantive agenda or politics.
The DA probably gets lampooned the least but it, in turn, doesn’t get taken as seriously as an official opposition party ought to be taken. Reporting on the DA is not so much negative as it is often lazy. It would be hard to choose between the worst reporting evils to put up with as a political party; being caricatured (the EFF), or not being given adequate attention (the DA). Either way, there is no systematic favouring of any political party by the local print media.
At any rate, with the SABC on its side, the ANC should be the last of our major parties to moan. If you cannot succeed in building and sustaining a positive brand even when the public broadcaster is a state broadcaster then you deserve no sympathy. Imagine how differently the DA or the EFF would look if SABC executives were in love with them rather than with the ANC? It’s the ANC’s fault for not knowing how to engage and influence all media, public and commercial, more effectively than it actually does. A media appeals tribunal can’t solve poor communications and ineffective brand positioning in the media.
Finally, senior ANC leader, Zweli Mkhize, agrees with Nzimande and goes a step further, arguing the ANC should be reported on “without bias”. It’s amazing how people can throw out statements and assume that their statements are obviously true just because they believe them. Why must any print publication be without bias? And what does that mean anyway? This claim is pretty vague and merits a full debate.
If the Sunday Times wanted to be biased toward the ANC and Sunday Independent chose to be biased in favour of the ACDP, what is wrong with that? Would a media appeals tribunal stop them from choosing political sides? Bias is perfectly permissible in the media.
It is false reporting that is a problem, firstly, and unbalanced reporting, such as when you write about a subject without getting adequate comment from them or you inadequately capture their comment in your final report. But there is a massive difference between accuracy and balance, on the one hand, and permitted bias, on the other.
Unless and until the ANC-led alliance offers more persuasive premises in support of a media appeals tribunal, we should all collectively resist that suggestion. It’s a ploy to police the media for ANC gain.