Henry Jeffreys is the engaging deputy editor of Beeld newspaper and an articulate critic of the problems of journalism in South Africa. And he likes the word ”wicket”.
He has also spent the past year doubling up as chairperson of the South African National Editors’ Forum (Sanef). Organising editors is a lot harder than herding cats and Jeffreys has had his work cut out for him.
He steps down at the organisation’s annual general meeting next week, and a day or so later flies out for a one-year Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University. It’s been a busy year for Jeffreys — doing his demanding job at Beeld while occupying the top leadership role in South Africa’s print, broadcast and online editors’ organisation.
Asked to review his time as Sanef chair, he cites the following:
- Gender agenda: ”I’ve been promoting Sanef’s annual theme as agreed at our 2003 annual general meeting, which is a focus on gender in the media,” he says. Under his leadership, Sanef partnered with an NGO called GenderLinks, identifying some common ground in the strategic interests of the two organisations and negotiating some differences.
”This came out when GenderLinks called for Sanef editors to scrap the ‘back pages’ and to reconsider the way we represent women,” says Jeffreys. A number of editors baulked and Sanef as a forum had to walk the proverbial tightrope across the rift. Jeffreys’s assessment? Much as some Sanef members may regard the gender issue as unpalatable, they need to recognise this as an issue that needs to be tackled.
- Continental integration: ”We’ve led South African editors in contributing to media freedom, but in a non-hegemonic way,” Jeffreys says. In this, he has continued the legacy of his predecessor, Mathatha Tsedu — a person equally passionate about linking South African editors with their counterparts elsewhere in Africa. Jeffreys himself, before he took over from Tsedu, convened an all-Africa editors conference under Sanef auspices. That event has since given birth to counterparts in the region and Jeffreys has overseen the rise of a Southern African editors’ forum.
- Highlighting ethics and protecting principles: ”We’ve encountered a lot of criticism for not acting against members who tolerate ethical problems like plagiarism. But Sanef is a voluntary formation — not a bar council with the right to sanction members. We have to uphold the independence of editors to decide what is in the best interests of their operation, and at the same time uphold the high ideals for which we stand. Our annual general meeting needs to discuss this, because it could change the way we operate.”
Jeffreys talks animatedly about the Hefer commission: ”Journalists were put in a position where the confidential nature of their sources might be revealed, while the controversial conduct of Ranjeni Munusamy made it complex about how to respond.” (At the time, many journalists deemed Munusamy to have compromised the craft and therefore to have had no professional case for refusing to testify).
Jeffreys discloses that the intensity of debate on Munusamy threatened to damage Sanef.
”I argued very forcefully that we should take a stand that had nothing to do with Ranjeni the person, but with her being put in a situation that related to revealing sources.”
In his view, the historical context was significant.
”We had been having discussions with government about the way Section 205 of the Criminal Procedures Act was unacceptable in its prescribing jail if you refuse to reveal your sources.”
There was ”a highly explosive political situation around Hefer, and there was a danger that the matter would be decided there, rather than in a more sober review with the government”.
With Hefer’s ruling that Ranjeni had to give evidence, it looked as if the courts would call the result, says Jeffreys, leaving Sanef on the sidelines.
”Hence we joined other organisations as an amicus curiae — as a party with an interest in Ranjeni winning her appeal against being forced to testify.”
Jeffreys registers that many editors disagreed with this stance, although his position became the Sanef line.
”It was about the principles at stake. We needed to take out the clutter of people, personalities and emotions. Today, I sleep peacefully with our position on Ranjeni.”
The outgoing Sanef chairperson suggests that it is now urgent for the organisation to renew its push on Section 205 reform — particularly because there is now a new minister of justice and a new head of the parliamentary committee on justice.
Turning to media-government relations, Jeffreys recalls Sanef’s 2002 meeting with the Cabinet at Sun City under the chairpersonship of his predecessor, Tsedu.
”Some journalists say there should be no dealings with government, other than reporting on it. But in an evolving and complex democracy like ours, we cannot entirely stand back as observers. We are active participants who every day are helping to shape society.”
But he is quick to add: ”The important thing in engaging with government and other stakeholders is that we also always keep an eye on our wicket of a free and independent media.”
Jeffreys assesses the Sun City meeting as having enabled the government to understand better the media and vice versa. The event, he says, produced an environment out of which flowed the review of Section 205.
Two years on, he proposes that it is now time for a new round of talks.
”The [Bulelani] Ngcuka and [Jacob] Zuma fight opened up new suspicions in government about the role, functions and intentions of the media. President [Thabo] Mbeki himself has talked with a measure of disdain about the media, and this is not an environment that we should be happy with.”
Although the government previously had sufficient parliamentary strength to change the Constitution, it had showed no sign of doing so, he observes.
However, it still needs noting that the government has now won an even stronger mandate — and this despite the media having highlighted concerns over Pretoria’s policies on Zimbabwe and HIV/Aids.
”Government may try to argue that we media guys are jumping around about Zimbabwe and Aids, but that the electorate has given them an even bigger vote.”
The next step would be ruling-party politicians proclaiming: ”We have a huge majority, proving that we know best what people want — so you guys in media, shut up.”
Jeffreys says: ”We need to respect the way the African National Congress is entrenched amongst voters, but democracy is also not only about elections. It includes the media and other constitutionally protected or mandated institutions playing their independent watchdog roles.”
For him, while some editors may decide to support the government, there are others who solely see themselves as watchdogs, and the total mix is what independent media allow.
Moving from relations with the government to relations with owners, Jeffreys quips: ”I need to be careful — my management just decided to pay a lot of money to send me to Harvard for a year!”
However, he goes on to say that commercial pressures on journalism are huge.
”When you talk with editors, one of their main complaints is the extent to which they have to concentrate on the business side, at the expense of time to focus on what’s in their pages or on their bulletins.”
Jeffreys attributes the intensified commercial squeeze mainly to increased competition from a wider number of outlets. But he also blames owners for having diverting investments into internet publishing, for which traditional media has to pay the bill.
He disagrees strongly with the view that sensationalism per se sells papers.
”People buy a paper because of what its wicket is,” he asserts.
Thus, while the Daily Sun in South Africa mines a tabloid formula, other papers should stick to their different recipes. Jeffreys speculates that the social changes in the past 10 years and the need to serve new readers have made it difficult for editors to know what their mix should be.
”We have lost the plot a bit.”
However, he believes strongly that owners and publishers should revisit the importance of the position of the editor within a media company.
”It is not only a question of whether an editor can influence his or her own publication, but also whether he or she is involved in determining where the company is going.”
Editors’ status has been downgraded within the media over the past decade, compared with what it used to be.
”There is a great difference between the situation today and the level at which editors used to play,” Jeffreys says. ”It is now not a case of deciding what should be done editorially and then drawing up a business plan to do that, but the other way around.”
There is no doubt that the ”bean-counters, general managers and accountants” are determining what a publication should be. Editors are often brought in as a second thought, he says.
He sees a paradoxical disjuncture between the Fourth Estate role, where editors wield power in the wider society, and the way they are removed from access to the board and influence within their own companies.
”I have a sense that many editors are mere onlookers as regards the economics of publishing,” says Jeffreys. For him, the media’s democratic role is seen by too many managers as nonsense, or as too costly because the requisite quality has to be paid for.
The levels of frustration among editors are so high, he diagnoses, that it would be opportune for them to meet, as a collective, with the owners to discuss the future of the industry. It’s something else for the Sanef agenda.
Jeffreys’s successor at Sanef will have a lot to tackle in the coming period. As for him, in his new ”wicket” at Harvard, he’ll be writing a book.
The man whose Sanef work has entailed fielding issues through continuous phone calls over the year, looks down and says: ”I won’t miss this thing,” gesturing at his cellphone. ”Now I can talk to people when I want to.”
Personal note: I worked closely with Jeffreys in the past year. I’ll miss his wisdom, and his mirth. But I know he’s just a call away :)…
E-mail Guy Berger directly if you have a question about this article.
Guy Berger is head of Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes University and deputy chair of the South African National Editors Forum (Sanef). He was recently nominated for the World Technology Awards.