A proposal to hold truth hearings into the media has provoked much argument, writes Jacquie Golding-Duffy
THERE is consensus among editors that the media should be investigated for the role it played during the apartheid era, but there are differing opinions on whether the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) is the correct platform for the press to confess all.
The suggestion that a special week-long truth and reconciliation hearing be held on the role of the media was proposed by journalist, Human Rights Committee member and truth commission employee, Hugh Lewin. The proposal hopes to highlight the possible role the media played in creating and sustaining a climate where gross human rights violations occurred.
A former political prisoner, Lewin asked the Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) to make a recommendation on the appropriateness of the TRC holding hearings at which the role of the media would be scrutinised.
However, in a draft proposal the FXI says it is in favour of the commission conducting hearings and recommends that it “specifically investigate”:
* the laws which were used to control or regulate the media;
* the role of Parliament, Cabinet and the judiciary in enhancing and enforcing these laws;
* the role of states of emergencies and specific media emergency measures in controlling the media;
* the role of the South African Broadcasting Corporation as a state-controlled broadcaster; and
* the role of privately-owned media.
The FXI suggests that the TRC compile a separate report relating specifically to the media, adding that the assistance of non- governmental organisations has to be requested to ensure thorough research prior to public hearings.
“The consequences in terms of gross human rights violations as a result of state control and regulation of the media should be recorded to serve as a warning to present and future governments about the importance of preserving a free, diverse and independent media,” said FXI executive director Jeanette Minnie.
While the editor of the Sunday Independent, John Battersby, says it “is a sound and necessary idea”, the editor of Rapport, Izak De Villiers, “cannot see the point”.
Battersby says the media should not be exempt from telling its story, but he admits that there are differing opinions on how this process should be handled, adding that the TRC will face the same difficulties in the media as that of the security forces – an unwillingness by some perpetrators to come forward.
“I think the pressure can be intensified if some people are subpoenaed. Omitting the media has allowed for a gap in the TRC process,” he argues.
Battersby outlines three categories where an investigation into the media could take place:
* An investigation into what ways the media used in criminalising legitimate opposition to apartheid. The press criminalised the fight for freedom in the way it reported, selected and presented its news.
* The TRC could look into ways the media assisted in government disinformation.
* How the media failed to be accountable to the public – it was accountable to the government of the day and the minority of readers who were able to keep the Nationalist Party government in power.
De Villiers, however, disagrees with Battersby. He says he is “not enthusiastic about the TRC”.
“My point of view is that if certain crimes are committed, crimes that can be proven, those people should be taken to court. One is innocent until proven guilty … therefore the press should use the courts of law vigorously and exploit our new Constitution if it wants to do it right now,” he says.
De Villiers argues that the issue of exposing a network of informers operating within the press in the past is pointless.
“Why expose murderers and informers of the past. Will that stop crime now? There will always be informers until thy kingdom come and until the archbishop [Desmond Tutu] can convince me that the press will do its job properly and crime will be curbed by us coming to the TRC. Until such time, I am not interested.”
Cape Times editor Moegsien Williams says the press appearing before the TRC is an “intriguing idea”, but argues that an appearance before the TRC has to be accompanied by a proper investigation into the role of the media during the dark apartheid years.
“Coming to the TRC will be useful as it will afford the public the opportunity to take a closer look at the media and possibly understand the role they played during apartheid.
“The TRC will at one level expose the collaboration of the media, and on another level it will highlight the courageous standards of journalism that existed at the time,” says Williams.
He adds that the TRC has its hands full at the moment and should not be expanding its brief to include the press. However, an investigation into the media, under the auspices of the FXI, for example, would be useful.
Williams believes that a commission into the press will bode well for the industry as it has to re-establish credibility with the general public and redefine its role.
Sowetan editor Mike Siluma agrees. He says that it is clear that the press has to re- evaluate its role, now that we have a democratic government in place; but he argues that before we can move forward the media has to clear up the past.
“My personal view is that the press is no different from other social institutions and therefore the media should not have special status in the eyes of the TRC. It is of utmost importance that the media confess to whatever ills it committed in the past.” Siluma says the media has a “helluva lot” to account for as it could have done a lot of things differently.
“We could have fought silently. We need not have called the African National Congress “terrorists”, we could have insisted on giving [Nelson] Mandela an honorific. We, as the press, were guilty of smearing the very people who were fighting for our freedom.”
The deputy editor of Beeld, Tim du Plessis, agrees with Siluma that the media should not be treated differently: “I am not saying it is a good or bad thing. All I’m saying is that it is necessary in some respects.
“The press is an institution of civil society such as churches and banks. If we can urge the churches to go before the TRC, then the press can do the same,” says Du Plessis, adding that this did not mean he was going to appear before the TRC.
“If I go, then so must all whites because you cannot just say: I did not vote for the system. This does not matter. You may not have voted, but you benefitted from the system. Everyone should admit that they maintained a system that allowed people like Eugene De Kock and Ferdi Barnard to operate. They believed everything they read in the newspapers because they chose to believe it. The press should have been questioned more and the TRC will grant people this opportunity.”
At the Commonwealth Press Union conference held recently, TRCchair Desmond Tutu, referring to the media, said it is “quite brave in its criticism of the new government”, although the same press “was coy about saying boo to a goose in the old days”.
Tutu says there is quite rightly resentment in government circles at the media’s new zeal for criticism when the press was “somewhat less courageous in the old days. I must say I share some of that resentment.”