(Gemma Ritchie/M&G)
A few years ago, when New Frame was still around, it published a series of articles contemplating different ways of looking at the economy.
You can still find traces of the New Frame, New Economy series — which included articles by Seeraj Mohamed, Zukiswa Kota and Imraan Valodia — on the internet. But since New Frame’s sudden and heartbreaking collapse, the publication’s website has been taken down, this trove of wisdom lost with it.
I often think about this series around the time of the budget, when economics writers such as myself are called on to decipher a crush of information about the country’s fiscal predicament.
It’s difficult to know where to turn for answers and it’s even harder to turn away those being spoon-fed to us by bankers, consultants and government officials. New Frame, New Economy gave us something different to chew on.
During the first weeks of this very important election year — for South Africa and about 63 other countries — some have pointed out that the whittling down of the world’s newsrooms presents an existential threat to democracy.
Since New Frame’s implosion, the result of the publication’s wealthy benefactor pulling its funding, a number of newsrooms around the world have met a similar fate.
Just last week, staff cuts were announced at Vox Media’s NowThis, as well as US-based nonprofit news organisation The Intercept, in part of what The Guardian described as the “2024 evisceration of journalism and media jobs”.
According to employment firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas, 836 US media jobs were cut in January, a slight improvement from the 1 093 retrenchments announced in December 2023. There were 20 000 media layoffs last year, according to the firm.
South Africa’s newsrooms have not been spared this onslaught. In fact, the country’s journalists are all too familiar with the tumult that surrounds restructuring.
Last September, Sunday Times owner Arena Holdings announced restructuring. Though I am told that a lot of writing jobs were spared, I’ve also heard that the restructuring has made newsrooms even tougher.
Earlier this month, in an editorial announcing his departure from the Financial Mail (also owned by Arena), Rob Rose wrote: “Today, the media industry has become more frail and less able to hold people accountable.”
Without any real investment, there is little hope of maintaining robust newsrooms with the resources needed to hold our failing government (and the country’s corporate elite) to account.
Because these two things — South Africa’s enfeebled government and its shell-shocked newsrooms — are something I think about often, I’ve often thought of the ways in which they are connected.
Both the state and media organisations have underinvested in their capacity and both are reeling from the consequences of this austerity. The former has a much larger role in this erosion that some may think.
Last Friday, economist Duma Gqubule tweeted a video of former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, writing “Ahead of all the fearmongering by treasury and the embedded commentariat before and after the budget next week please remember that a national budget does not operate like a household budget.”
In the video, Varoufakis responds to an audience member likening the fiscus to a household budget, a comparison relied on by governments around the world. “In your life you have a wonderful independence between your expenses and your income,” Varoufakis retorts.
“So when you cut down on your expenses, your income isn’t cut. But if the country as a whole goes into a major saving spree, then its total income is going to come down.”
In other words, when a government cuts spending, it also impairs the economy’s ability to grow — a predicament that can be harmful to everyone. If an economy isn’t growing, demand suffers and businesses have no reason to invest.
Newsrooms, which admittedly are victims of a host of other challenges, are not exempt from the vicious cycle created by an underinvesting state, something we should keep in mind as the budget analyses stream in.
It is true that the whittling down of newsrooms is a threat to democracy. This will probably be the focus for the near future.
But the fact that there are simply fewer journalists (with the resources and time to think about things differently) is also a threat to our economy, mired as it is in a state-sanctioned disregard for alternative views on policy.
One of those lost New Frame, New Economy articles, by Seeraj Mohamed, explains the importance of engaging with the work of so-called heterodox economists. “Heterodox economists have much more to offer with regard to improving economic conditions in South Africa,” Mohamed wrote.
“The rejection of their views hurts all of South Africa and the prospects for recovery and a better future.”
Today, our future does not look good. Our economy, constrained by spending cuts, will struggle to grow and unemployment will remain high. And with fewer people — and pages in newspapers — to hold economic policymakers accountable, turning things around could take a lot longer.