Why are the president and the African National Congress so angry?
There’s no anger. It’s a question of getting motivated and committed to make sure we do the necessary analysis.
The party and the president say the party is not setting a national agenda through the media. Yet newspaper research shows the media is, on the whole, very positive about the government.
The issue is not positivity. Based on our analysis and responses to party positions, the media agenda is strongly anti-transformation. Who sets the agenda? The truth is different from the media content, which is determined by what we call an ”elite”.
Where do you detect this ”anti-transformation” agenda?
When the president raises issues of racism, he is accused of playing a race card. Black economic empowerment will be branded ”selfish greed”, as something that must be done away with; it’s viewed as a perpetuation of racism and discrimination.
Doesn’t your electoral majority and being the governing party mean you set the national policy agenda?
That’s what we’re saying. Despite the drowning out of the ANC message, people on the ground refuse to be fed with distortions. They see the ANC as [the] primary protector of their aspirations and interests. They refuse to be told the ”elite” can protect their interests.
Doesn’t your response to The Economist prove the magazine’s point — that President Thabo Mbeki is running an increasingly intolerant administration?
We will not stop challenging distortions and the evolution of a mythology. We must distinguish between total falsehoods and criticism of a particular issue or process that is unfolding. The ANC’s true character is that it takes criticism.
One would expect more confidence from a party which rules with such a majority …
We feel confident and secure. But this does not make us blind to developments within our society.
Who is writing the ANC series?
I write the series with my team and the ANC’s research team. The president is not part of that team.
The ANC is obviously very unhappy with the media, yet you continue to endorse a free media …
We fought for and will continue to support freedom of expression. But we believe there’s a battle of ideas. The ANC is one of the few organisations in the world that does not have a newspaper under its influence. We have full confidence in our media; but we know it comes from the apartheid system and that stereotypes remain in the boardroom.
SA’s sweetheart media
A key theme of the African National Congress’s online series, The Sociology of Public Discourses is that the party cannot set a national agenda because of a powerful ”elite” that controls public debate.
This ”elite” is largely identified as the media, yet research shows that the media gives the government sweetheart treatment.
In a study commissioned by the government last year, the research agency Media Tenor found that the state gets a far higher percentage of positive coverage than in most other countries. The research tracked the media’s coverage of all aspects of policy and policy implementation.
”After the April 2004 elections, 35% to 40% of coverage of government was from government sources. Every second statement on government in South African media was from government sources,” says Wadim Schreiner, MD of Media Tenor. A tiny percentage of political reporters went to alternative sources to assess a government perspective, he found.
Ministers are quoted regularly in the media, while the research also shows that SABC TV gives the government particularly good spin compared with e.tv, which is more balanced.
Between October and December last year, however, ”the image of the government suffered tremendously” from the start of the Schabir Shaik trial.
Even then, says the media analyst, the ANC still gets more positive than negative reporting. And President Thabo Mbeki ”has a pretty good image, with the exception [of his views on] HIV/Aids”. — Mail & Guardian reporter