The Print Media Association (PMA) is finalising a major study that for the first time maps ‘transformation, skills development, language and ownership” as well as the advancement of black people, women and disabled persons in the print media industry.
Natasha Volans, general manger of the PMA, said they would divulge the contents to parliament early in 2006 and would use it as a basis to track change in the industry on an annual basis. The PMA represents the interests of 617 newspaper and magazine publishers in South Africa.
Volans hotly contested an article in Business Report (10/10) that said, ‘the news media would hold off from signing empowerment deals until the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) published its codes of good practice.”
She said: ‘Different companies are signing off on their own empowerment partnerships. We have been way ahead of the transformation game. The process started with the Print Development Unit in 2000 when we looked at empowerment in the print industry and barriers to entry for previously disadvantaged publishers and how the industry could assist them.
‘We also did further research to look at what else was necessary and worked with the Government Communication and Information System to establish the Media Development and Diversity Agency and committed R30-million over five years by five media houses.
‘When advertising and marketing started their process toward a charter, we endorsed it, but felt we were already involved in our own process. The print media is involved in so many areas, which charter do you sign?
‘Companies felt that each must pursue their own equity targets and empowerment, and wait for the Department of Trade and Industry code of practice to come out. It will be binding and is due out now.”
Volans said the decision to do research into the industry, both quantitative and qualitative, came from their presentation to parliament this year where they were asked detailed questions.
‘At parliament we realised no-one has done work as a collective to develop a footprint of the industry covering all the issues. We put together a very, very detailed questionnaire and an independent consultant has done extensive interviews. It is important that the industry is aligned.”
Media analyst at Nedcor Securities, Peter Armitage, says: ‘If one takes a cynical view, the industries that have worked faster on empowerment are those who needed to meet licence conditions or obtain permissions from government. The mining charter happened because government put a lot of pressure on them. If you look at radio, where new licences are being issued, empowerment has moved rapidly. But with newspapers there is no trigger from government to do it. The retail industry is similar, nothing government says will change them.”
Nonetheless, Armitage feels there has been some movement in the newspaper industry. ‘I feel the most sympathetic toward Naspers, they are very much in the electronic world and fall subject to convergence legislation, the Telecoms Charter, a whole range. They are justified in saying, once you have laid down the rules, we will play the game.
‘Johnnic Communications have been working on their black empowerment deal for quite some time; I think they are battling to reach resolution. Independent is foreign owned and they need to understand what government is going to do with foreign owned entities. Caxton would be influenced by anything that happens at Johncom.”
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