Durban - The decision by the DA in the Western Cape to terminate their subscription of Independent Media Group (IMG) newspaper titles is regrettable and sets a precedent that the party itself and its supporters would not countenance were it to be replicated elsewhere.
We cannot dictate to the DA on how it should spend the tax revenue that the voters in the province have entrusted them with. This is especially so because as we are part of the same group that Helen Zille’s government has decided to not patronise, we are not impartial observers nor are we entitled to the patronage.
What the Western Cape government cannot wish away is that the IMG, as the biggest English language newspaper group in the province, reflects a significant view of the people there. It cannot wish away the fact that it was an Independent Newspapers title, the Cape Argus, which exposed the brown envelope scandal that resulted in the ANC-appointed premier Ebrahim Rasool leaving his post and being redeployed as ambassador to the US.
It is not the first time that those with political power have sought to leverage the tax-money purse they control to make a political point.
In 2007, then-minister in the Presidency Essop Pahad was condemned for threatening to withdraw government advertising from the Sunday Times after it revealed that the then-minister of Health, the late Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, was convicted of theft while working as a doctor in Botswana.
The journalism and media freedom fraternity condemned then-cabinet spokesman Jimmy Manyi’s announcement of measures for distributing the state’s R1 billion, accusing him of using a carrot-and-stick punishment or reward for how media houses reported on the ANC-led government. Raymond Louw, then deputy chairman of the SA National Editors’ Forum, described the move as “an unacceptable threat against newspapers”.
It would be hypocritical if those who condemned previous attempts to use state power to effect the “economic censorship” and “an unacceptable threat” if they were to be quiet when the same was perpetrated by a DA-led government.
It would be a shame on the DA, by its own description a custodian of liberalism, that it would be the first party in power to carry out the threats to strangle a media house it does not like.
*This editorial was carried in The Mercury
The Mercury