Brown tackles ANC on media transformation

Karima Brown, the executive editor of Independent Newspapers, says the ANC should ask itself what it has done to promote transformation in the media. File picture: Leon Lestrade

Karima Brown, the executive editor of Independent Newspapers, says the ANC should ask itself what it has done to promote transformation in the media. File picture: Leon Lestrade

Published Oct 8, 2015

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The government should put its money where its mouth is by placing its advertisements with media which give it a fair hearing rather than those who write it off as a failed state.

Karima Brown, Group Editorial Executive of Independent Newspapers, delivered this blunt message to the ANC on the eve of its National General Council meeting where the ruling party’s unhappiness with the media will be aired.

Brown told SABC Digital News in an interview on Thursday that the ANC and the government complained about the lack of transformation in the media and about the media taking the side of the political opposition and ganging up on the government. Yet it gave the bulk of its advertisements to the newspapers which were most critical of it, neglecting those which were balanced.

She agreed with the ANC that; “There is a tendency among the print media to almost take an oppositional stance on the ruling party on occasion. “

Brown said she believed there ought to be a more balanced narrative around the ruling party. “There needs to be a more accurate reflection of what the ruling party is about,” she said and an acknowledgement that it had been chosen to govern by a vast majority of South Africans.

“But that’s not giving the ANC and the government a get-out-of-jail card. If the government and the ANC mess up, if the government doesn’t deliver, if the ruling party is guilty of wrong-doing, they must be exposed like every other political party. “

Brown said there was a contradiction in the ANC’s criticism of the media in that the government was putting the bulk of its advertisements in the very news organisations which criticised it all the time. “If you look at the Sunday Times, for instance, which is part of the TMG (Times Media Group) you will often note that the ANC government is reflected as presiding over a failed state, as wholly corrupt, that everyone in the ruling party is corrupt or potentially corrupt. And yet the bulk of the ANC’s advertising money goes to the TMG group. So the ANC must also put is money where its mouth is and look at supporting initiatives around media diversity,” she said.

This included the need to increase the tiny budget of the Media Development and Diversity Agency (MDDA), the statutory development agency which had a specific mandate to increase media diversity and promote transformation.

“So the ANC government must also ask itself what has it done about promoting media diversity,” Brown said.

She said the ANC was lumping all media together in its criticism. Yet Independent Newspapers agreed with many of the sentiments expressed in the NGC documents about the media, particularly about the slow pace of transformation, and was doing something about the problem.

“We are the only big commercial black-owned media company in South Africa. We are definitely focussing on bringing an alternative narrative to the media landscape. Particularly around issues related to the continent. Particularly around issues related to China, countries that are part of the Brics formation.”

For that the group and she herself were often criticised in other quarters as being too-ANC, Brown said. But she also she made it clear that Independent did not support the idea of a statutory body to regulate the media, rather than the existing self-regulatory mechanism through the Press Council.

This is one of the proposals on the table at the National General Council meeting.

“At Independent we are very principled about regulation and self-regulation. We are not in favour of statutory regulation of the media. But we are not unreflective about the fact that the media does have to have checks and balances, like everybody else.

“What’s important, though, is that those checks and balances are weighted in favour of those who don’t have power. Our readers, our viewers, the consumers of our products. Invariably power elites are the ones who use regulatory mechanisms to try and push their points. But we do believe there ought to be systems through which we are regulated.”

She disagreed with the notion that the media could or should be objective and said it was always obvious that certain media held certain political views. News, and particularly political news, was not value-less or devoid of ideology. However media did need to be accurate, balanced and fair. “And more importantly we need to be diverse in the views that we are putting out there. “

They should also be honest about their biases she said. She complained, for instance, about most media houses always trotting out the same white male economic analysts – she mentioned in particular Mike Schussler and Dawie Roodt – to comment on the national budget, for example, as though they represented the objective economic truth. In fact they were in favour of a capitalist economy and of neo-liberal economics and there were other economists with different perspectives whom the media should also use.

“The policy choices we make are often informed by peoples’ political views. And yet when media houses present views on the economy, they present the neo-liberal view as the normative view, as if there aren’t other views. So there’s a big lack of diversity in our economic coverage. “

This was not healthy and so Independent Newspapers had introduced, for instance, its new supplement The World at Work which looks at the political economy, particularly from a labour perspective – “because labour is generally reduced to being an irritant in the media.

“At Independent Newspapers transformation for us is not just about numbers. It isn’t just about ticking boxes. It isn’t just about whether you have a black editor. Those things are important. But it’s also about how comprehensive you are in presenting diverse views. Whether it’s on the economy, whether its on health, whether its on education, whether its on Africa, it’s important to put as many views as possible in your publications so that viewers, readers, listeners, can make up their own minds.”

Brown said for Independent Newspapers it was not enough to increase black equity in the company or black representation in staff. “It’s also important that we impact the narrative.”

Recognizing that language was a major barrier, Independent was also introducing vernacular language newspapers to empower more people.

“So when the ANC talks about diversity, about empowerment, about telling the whole story, it’s also important that they insist that government rewards those news organisations that actually take the public mandate around empowerment further. Not just cosmetic change. So being able to read in your own language, being informed in your own language is important. So we are urging the ANC to push harder around the issue of vernacular papers, and the importance of reflecting Africa more in our coverage.

“Many people when they read our papers, have this idea we are not on this continent because of the lack of Africa coverage, because of the way Africa is general portrayed. It’s generally about animals and about wars. You don’t get a story coming out of Kenya about, say, the IT explosion. “Those stories struggle to become part of our mainstream newspapers. And if we don’t change those things, then discussions around media transformation will remain empty. More importantly they will become exchanges between power elites, whether its political elites and media elites. But you’ve got to shift the debate. You’ve actually got to change the narrative in South Africa, you’ve got to change the narrative about Africa. You’ve got to change the narrative about the globe.

“I’m tired personally when I read about the US-Cuba relations, to read the story only from the American perspective. I want to hear about the Cuban ambassador. And those are the practical things we are doing at Independent media, to literally change and challenge the media landscape in the country.

“And if the ANC is really serious about diversity and differences, then it’s not just about ‘do they say nice things about the ANC or not.?’ It’s about whether the South African media is actually reflecting comprehensively what South Africa is about. It’s development agenda. Our Africa agenda. And ultimately our global agenda. And that will take real transformation in the media forward.”

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