FRIDAY, 3.30PM
THE Forum of Black Journalists on Friday accused the English and Afrikaans press and the SA Broadcasting Corporation of knowingly colluding with successive apartheid governments.
The accusation formed part of a submission handed to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Johannesburg offices. In a statement outlining its submission, the FBJ said it will seek “to indict the South African media as a mere extension of the apartheid system during the period March 1960 to May 1994”.
According to the FBJ, the media’s collusion with apartheid took the form of “actively enforcing discriminatory laws in their own institutions, using terminology and language that was ideologically in congruence with the National Party governments and in conflict with the forces fighting for the eradication of apartheid”.
“They failed to inform the populace about the evil that was going on around them and victimised those in their employ who were actively opposing apartheid.”
The FBJ said its submission includes testimony from journalists, some in influential positions today, who were harassed by the security police and the media over the past 30 years.
The FBJ said it believes the skeletons in media houses’ cupboards need to be exposed so that the media never again fall into the situation where they are slaves to any government, and that they should never again, wittingly or unwittingly, work against the internationally recognised interests of ordinary citizens.
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