Cosatu has announced that it will not support the idea of a statutory media appeals tribunal, which the ANC wants to introduce as a way to regulate the print media in South Africa, but says the current system of self-regulation is also not desirable.
Media under fire
The announcement puts the federation at odds with both its alliance partners. The South African Communist Party has repeatedly expressed its support for the tribunal concept.
Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi told reporters in Johannesburg on Thursday that the trade union federation is suspicious of those punting the tribunal idea.
“The CEC [central executive committee of Cosatu] cannot go and support something that is meant to give refuge to corrupt individuals,” Vavi said.
Vavi was addressing reporters following Cosatu’s CEC meeting this week.
He was almost hauled in front of an ANC disciplinary committee earlier this year after publicly voicing concerns about corruption allegations against Communications Minister Siphiwe Nyanda and Cooperative Governance Minister Sicelo Shiceka. The threatened disciplinary action failed to materialise.
Nyanda, whose costly stay in five-star hotels in Cape Town was revealed by the Mail & Guardian, is a firm supporter of the tribunal and has written newspaper columns justifying it as an essential institution.
Cosatu has more pressing issues to worry about, Vavi told the media. “We’d rather focus on other things first, like job creation and fighting poverty and corruption,” he said. “We are looking at it and asking: What is the timing of this? Who are the people [advocating the tribunal]? Why rush these things that don’t matter to us? The Scorpions thing, that was rushed.”
At the same time, he said that Cosatu is opposed to self-regulation, because “it doesn’t work”.
“There are — problems with how to deal with cases where the media goes beyond merely exercising their constitutional right to express a view, but resorts to using lies, defamation, distortion, selective reporting, unsubstantiated facts from anonymous sources, deliberate omission of relevant facts, et cetera.”
The Press Council of South Africa, the press ombudsman and the Press Appeals Panel have not been effective in combating these ills, because they lack adequate funding and staff and are too closely linked to the media industry, Vavi said.
“There is, therefore, a case for looking at alternative bodies to provide the public with ways to defend themselves against unfair or inaccurate reporting.
The proposed [tribunal] is one such proposal, but the CEC agreed that it could not be supported until it is much clearer how it would be constituted.”
Cosatu asked for studies to be done into the way the issue of media regulation is dealt with in other countries and “how the independence of such bodies can be safeguarded”.
The federation said it would oppose any tribunal used to intimidate the media into not exposing crime, corruption, incompetence and the squandering of public money.
“On the contrary, that is what the media should be encouraged to do,” he said, adding that Cosatu is concerned that the print media is largely in the hands of three large companies, which did not allow for diversity.
“[They] all reflect the outlook and prejudices of the capitalist class that own them — [they are] pro-big business, the free market and private enterprise,” Vavi said.
l In another development this week, the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers and the World Editors’ Forum wrote to President Jacob Zuma to express their “serious concern” about the ANC’s media tribunal proposal and the Protection of Information Bill.
The two organisations — which represent 18 000 publications, 15 000 online sites and 3 000 companies in more than 120 countries around the world — said that a government-appointed agency could be used as an instrument of political censorship, “as has happened many times across Africa”.
Saying that South Africa already had an effective self-regulatory system, they highlighted a declaration endorsed at the World Newspaper Congress in 2007 calling on African states to promote press freedom.