/ 12 January 1996

Team to take foreign media control to task

Jacquie Golding-Duffy

The task team appointed by Deputy President Thabo Mbeki to look at the media will be reviewing the South African Communications Services (SACS) — government’s current communications model — in a bid to find new and more effective means of disseminating government information to the public.

A brief for Friday’s meeting sent by Mbeki’s office to all ten members of the task team urges participants to concentrate on investigating, among others issues, the relationship between SACS and those print and electronic media structures not linked to

Freedom of Expression Institute chairman Raymond Louw, who is a task team member, said the team would also be reviewing the government’s existing policy on communication and placing “special emphasis” on re-assessing affirmative action policies.

“Ownership and control of the media, and how it affects government communications is also one of the key issues for the task team,” Louw

Another member of the task team, the Sowetan’s political editor, Mathatha Tsedu, said foreign control of the media by large conglomerates and monopolies should be a priority for the task team because foreign ownership impeded the process of ensuring a “diversity of voices” among the press.

“I believe that the large groups controlling the media should unbundle and relinquish shares. Sowetan staffers have appealed to the Independent Group to sell its stake in the Sowetan and allow them to buy shares. This displays the urgency with which our team has to discuss foreign control of the media,” Tsedu said.

More than 80 percent of South African print media is controlled by four major players: namely, Times Media Limited, Independent Newspapers Holdings, Perskor and the Nasionale

Although members agreed on the issue of spurring affirmative action, some feared that government may resort to “undesirable means” of implementation such as using government advertising money to implement the policy.