SOUTH Africa’s white-dominated newspapers display “rank hostility” toward the government, a minister close to President Thabo Mbeki has charged in a speech to industry leaders.
The ruling African National Congress (ANC), in a virtually unique situation among the democracies, has no representation in the mass media, Minister in the Presidency Essop Pahad told the advisory board of Independent Newspapers at a banquet in Cape Town.
Independent Newspapers, headed by Irish media magnate Anthony O’Reilly, operates South Africa’s biggest group of newspapers.
“What masquerades as ‘public opinion’, as reflected in the bulk of our media, is in fact minority opinion informed by the historic social and political position occupied by this minority,” Pahad said.
“If there is frank and robust criticism and the sort of healthy, independent scepticism that good journalism always shows towards government, well and good. But if there is a pattern of rank hostility, reckless reporting and failure to apply the ordinary norms of good journalism is relation to government individuals and actions, that is a different matter.”
?There is a point where criticism assumes the role of the philippic, bitter invective. That is the language to use against tyrants, and there is no tyranny in South Africa … “.
Democracy still requires much nurturing in South Africa because of its undemocratic past, Pahad said.
“There are responsibilities that should be shouldered by the media which go beyond the norms [that] apply in post-industrial societies, where challenges and approaches necessarily differ from ours.”
Pahad described the continued freedom and independence of the South African media, where most ownership and management is white, as “unnegotiable”.
“But there is little value in editors who have lost control of their columnists and reporters hiding behind the screen of a vaunted independence,” he said.
“True independence is born of strength, and is not weak-kneed and subject to manipulation by people who have ulterior motives, by people who are bitter because they have lost out in the great transition to democracy, by people who, simply, have an axe to grind.”
He accused the media of “systematic undermining” of Mbeki – criticised over recent months for his stand on Aids, on Zimbabwe and on a probe into an arms deal – and of government ministers. The ANC launched a weekly Internet newspaper, ANC Today, at the end of last month to get its views across.