Some of South Africa’s leading journalists have reminded their colleagues of the attempts by the apartheid government to embed journalists in their security forces. And they warned of the need to resist the temptations of embedding in the new Presidential Press Corps, due to be launched on Friday, April 4.
At a panel discussion on media coverage of the war in Iraq in Johannesburg, a number of journalists were concerned that that the new press corps would influence coverage in the same way that the embedding of reporters in the US military is affecting war coverage.
The panel discussion was hosted by the interim executive committee of the Presidential Press Corps (PPC).
The major preoccupation of the panel and its audience was the decision by many news organisations to embed journalists in the US military and the quality of South African coverage of the war.
Panelist Mathatha Tsedu, editor of the Sunday Times, said a journalist’s role was to do public good, to protect the weak against the strong. ”But the situation becomes different in a war situation and I have never covered any war,” Tsedu said.
The Sunday Times had sent reporter Bonny Schoonakker to Baghdad to transmit the reality of war as it happened. Schoonakker was not embedded on either the coalition or the Iraqi side. ”It is easy to become embedded without realising it,” Tsedu said.
He warned journalists to be careful about becoming embedded in the Presidential Press Corps.
Joe Thloloe, head of news at eTV said Tsedu had forgotten that he had covered a ”war” in South Africa just a few years ago.
”Journalists went into townships on the backs of Hippos (armoured vehicle) and this led to sanitised reports about the townships.”
The same is happening in Iraq, he said.
”The war has turned into a video game, so remote, and the media is moving the war away from us. It has got no impact.”
Thloloe said journalists should exercise their independence and show the real horror of war. They should remain on the side of the suffering and the weak.
Reuters Johannesburg Bureau Chief Nick Kotch explained how his organisation — one of the biggest news gatherers in the world — is covering the war. He said they have 70 journalists, of which 30 are embedded in the coalition side and 40 were ”unilaterals”. journalists operating on their own, scattered around the Gulf region.
Kotch felt the challenge to be accurate was greater for television, since it was sent out live. All print material, on the other hand, went through a 24-hour news desk in Dubai and was therefore more carefully processed and filtered.
Kotch said embedding was not a new thing, as journalists had always moved with their country’s military. The difference now was that there was large-scale opposition to this war.
”I don’t know of any rule that says if you are embedded on the one side you cannot comment about the other side,” he said.
Jimi Matthews, head of SABC television news, said that embedding was not a new idea for South Africans. The police during apartheid encouraged journalists to travel with them on their vehicles under the pretext that they would be protected. ”Some of us chose not to be embedded,” Matthews said.
He explained how the SABC had grappled to find a neutral term to describe the war in Iraq such as the Gulf Crisis and War on Iraq or War Against Iraq. ”But finally we settled for ‘Irag Update’ which we thought was more neutral,” Matthews said.
Milton Nkosi of BBC Johannesburg made it clear that he didn’t like this war and that it would diminish international media coverage of Africa. Nkosi said he had lost colleagues at war before, some of whom had been embedded and some not. It was difficult to cover the war without being embedded, he said. ”Unilaterals face very difficult choices and run the higher risks of being killed.”
The PPC was established to give SA journalists easier access to the President’s office and its supporters argue that it should give the public a better picture of his activities at home and around the world.
Ranjeni Mumusamy, Sunday Times journalist and convenor of the corps, said South African journalists have not had easy access to the President in the past and the idea of the PPC had emerged from demands for greater access. To many, it is just a facility, allowing journalists, for example, to travel with the President.
”Most editors could not afford to sent their journalists on separate flights from the President as this would not be cost effective and it takes time for journalists to reach the President’s destination,” Mumusamy argued. – journalism.co.za