Thabo Mbeki is an intelligent man with long experience of the press. When he complained this week that the press was failing to inform the public – pointing out that only 17% of Nelson Mandela’s Mafikeng speech had been conveyed to readers – we initially assumed he was making a joke. In the absence of any reported punchline we are forced to take the charge seriously.
We do not keep such statistics. But we suspect that comparisons abroad – in Britain, for instance – would show that 17% represents an unusually high degree of media attention to a party-political policy speech. When the speech lasted more than five hours – as Mandela’s did -the figure opens the press more to a charge of sycophancy than one of neglect.
Mbeki’s concern that the press respect the utterances of the president would do him some credit were it not for the suspicion that the Mafikeng speech was the work of Mbeki. It has been speculated that it was foisted on Mandela either because it was judged that the name of the president would ameliorate criticism, or because it was calculated that by putting the words of the incoming president into the mouth of the outgoing president an impression would be created of philosophical continuity.
A more worrying aspect of Mbeki’s attack is the expectation it betrays of how the media should “do its job”. Not only does he demand we act as a megaphone for government, but he implies that we should indulge in the sort of “sunshine journalism” that has blighted the pages of newspapers owned by the larger corporations – notably Independent Newspapers – at least until fairly recently.
Mbeki cites, as another example of the media’s failure to perform, the “fact” that it had not reported a steady decline in crime since 1994. We are not sure on what he bases the claim. The police themselves point out that crime statistics until very recently have been highly unreliable, due in part to ignorance about crime in the former homelands.
The South African Police Service has been saying there are hopeful signs that more serious crimes may have peaked (rape being an important exception), but even they are reluctant to suggest the tide has turned. And, of course, there are other worrying indicators that the battle against crime is far from won – an alarming decrease in successful prosecutions, for example, and Commissioner George Fivaz’s warning just this week that organised crime represents the “biggest threat to democracy in South Africa”.
Despite all this we must say that – far from having a “pessimistic mindset” on crime, as alleged by Mbeki – we have high hopes for the team now leading the good fight.
Fivaz and Meyer Khan have established a surprisingly effective professional relationship – which bodes well. Certainly we are as desirous of their success as anyone else. Even if it were true that our copy-tasting was dictated solely by a cynical desire to sell newspapers we would want good news – because we know perfectly well that the public also longs for happier tidings in these fairly bleak times.
But we will not be party to attempts by propagandists in government to manipulate public perceptions in the belief that they can thereby mould reality. It was an approach to government favoured by the National Party of the past – which believed (or affected to) that the only thing wrong with apartheid was that it had a “bad press”. We would be disappointed in the African National Congress if it were to indulge in the same twaddle.
Now the cover-up …
Penuell Maduna broke his silence on the Emanuel Shaw II saga this week when he effectively dismissed the findings of the commission of inquiry he himself ordered into the Liberian’s appointment to the state oil company. “In my view the report exhibits basic flaws and is unhelpful in the resolution of this saga,” the minerals and energy minister told Parliament. The only “flaw” the minister offered was the probe’s alleged failure to explore Shaw’s qualifications for the job. As its brief was simply to explore the string of procedural breaches surrounding Shaw’s appointment, this is less than significant.
The inquiry was conducted by the minister’s acting director general, Dick Bakker. Maduna has previously undertaken to stand by the commission’s findings. It is now three weeks since Maduna received its report, which had a simple message: shred Shaw’s contract and sack the current board of the Central Energy Fund.
Not only has he failed to do so, but he has now offered an implicit defence of the two culprits in the saga: Shaw, and the Central Energy Fund’s chair, Don Mkhwanazi. He trotted out the same explanations for Shaw’s appointment that Mkhwanazi gave in a full-page, self-serving advertisement in this newspaper. He proudly referred to Shaw’s various jobs under Liberian President Charles Taylor as if public office in a kleptocracy was some sort of a recommendation.
And, equally ridiculous, he referred to International Advisory Services as if it were a reputable, established company, as opposed to an off-the-shelf creation by Mkwhanazi’s Durban law firm.
This all clearly signals the start of a ministerial cover-up. Maduna has pinned his colours to Shaw’s and Mkhwanazi’s mast; now he must sink, or swim with them. The Mail & Guardian, needless to say, will be returning to the subject.