There’s an obvious danger in undertaking an in-depth cover piece on the chief of government’s communications apparatus. When one is reporting for an audience of media professionals, a significant percentage of whom are editors and journalists trained in the watchdog paradigm, one runs the unsettling risk of being written off as a lapdog of the leadership, a pawn for politicos, a flunky of the ruling faction. ‘Cos for the guardians of journalistic dogma, that hard drinking and tough talking core of fundamentalist scepticism, the smallest whiff of affirmation in the direction of government’s information service means sure relegation to the leper colony. You do not want to be branded a propagandist in these parts, son.
So covering Joel Netshitenzhe and his Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) is anything but simple. For starters, Netshitenzhe has a genuine case when he suggests that the media in South Africa have a tendency to ignore the poor, that selection of news items is not reflective of societal inequities, that there’s a propensity ‘to concentrate on the immediate sensational and exciting issues that are meant to constitute news.” Then emerges Netshitenzhe’s depth and erudition, which renders the prospect of poking holes in his broader ‘developmental’ agenda for the media pretty daunting.
Ultimately, we have endeavoured to be as impartial as possible. We have challenged the seeming inconsistencies in Netshitenzhe’s thesis and have asked the glaring questions any self-respecting journalist would ask. But hopefully we haven’t been overly influenced by our own institutional dogma. As Norman Mailer recently warned: ‘A nation which forms detailed opinions on the basis of detailed fact which is askew from the subtle reality becomes a nation of citizens whose psyches are skewed, item by detailed item, away from any reality. So great guilt clings to reporters.”