Johannesburg -
SACP leader Blade Nzimande has fired a broadside at the South African media industry, saying it actively opposed the tripartite alliance and President Jacob Zuma’s government.
He said almost all media houses refused to acknowledge the ANC’s achievements, unfairly criticised ANC leaders and resisted transformation.
Speaking at the SACP’s conference of commissars, Nzimande reserved his blade for the country’s big three media organisations – Times Media, Independent Newspapers, which publishes The Star, and Media24 – accusing them of being unfair, unethical and lacking balance in their reporting.
He said the SABC had joined this “posture” of late through its radio station SAfm. The radio station read on air only SMSes which called ANC leaders “hooligans”, Nzimande added.
He dismissed the country’s media as part of an anti-Zuma “liberal offensive” that dishonestly decried the leadership crisis in the country as a proxy to call for his removal from power.
The SACP boss urged party members to rethink their engagements with the media, including the “so-called Midrand Group”. This is a group of black intellectuals who have been largely critical of Zuma and his government in the opinion pages of various newspapers.
“The media have thrown away every pretence at fairness and balance. They are not even following their own press code, by the way. I don't know why the ANC has retreated on the issue of the media tribunal,” Nzimande said.
Mondli Makhanya, chairman of the South African National Editors’ Forum, on Thursday rejected Nzimande’s accusations as baseless. He said they smacked of dictatorial tendencies similar to those of former Soviet Union dictator Joseph Stalin.
“The South African media behaves in a manner that any media in a free society will behave, and this is obviously very alien to Nzimande. There is no conspiracy among newspapers, there is no agenda, there is no onslaught on any politician. We reflect society and its politics as they are,” Makhanya said.
He dismissed Nzimande’s suggestion that it was a mistake for the ANC to retreat on the media appeals tribunal.
Makhanya said the industry had introduced “much stronger” self-regulatory systems which “all the rational people” in the ruling party’s tripartite alliance had accepted as credible and having “strong teeth”.
Media24’s Esmaré Weideman, Independent Newspapers CEO Tony Howard, and Print and Digital Media CEO Ingrid Norman either failed to respond to questions sent or could not be reached for comment on Thursday.
SABC spokesman Kaizer Kganyago rejected Nzimande’s accusation that the public broadcaster had “deteriorated”, opposed the government and used its SMS lines to tarnish the image of ANC leaders.
“The SABC supports all its stakeholders, including the government, and therefore it is not true that we are opposed to the government and other stakeholders,” said Kganyago.
Nzimande accused the SABC of being hostile, adding that SAfm suppressed pro-government and ANC views.
“Even the public broadcaster is deteriorating very much. But I think there is suppression. I have sent SMSes but they never got published. SAfm maqabane [comrades] are doing something unethical.
“This thing of SMSes is a clever trick. We are not saying that they must not read SMSes, but those things are highly selected. How do you allow an SMS to be read that calls ANC leaders hooligans on the basis that these are not the views of the SABC? Where in the world do you find a public broadcaster that is just hostile?” he asked.
But Kganyago denied this, saying all of the SABC’s “political commentary/stories are channelled through the news and current [affairs] division”.
“We therefore deny that SMSes are used selectively.”
Nzimande added that big media groups were quick to buy successful, small newspapers that were in private hands in order to undermine media diversity.
“It can’t be that once a community paper becomes popular in De Aar, Media24 buys it, or Independent Newspapers, or Avusa. Freedom of the media is for those who speak English and Afrikaans, not for the overwhelming majority of our people. Now we were commemorating Black Wednesday, the banning of newspapers by the apartheid regime. Everybody is talking about the lessons to be learnt, not transformation of the media,” Nzimande added.
The Star