The media on Thursday scored a major victory following a ruling by the portfolio committee on home affairs exempting print and broadcast media from provisions of the controversial Film and Publications Bill.
Committee chairperson Patrick Chauke said the decision to reinsert media exemption in the measure was a culmination of robust engagement between the committee, the media and other stakeholders.
”This outcome was informed by the engagement with stakeholders — it is evidence that this Parliament of South Africa is not a rubber stamp, but a Parliament that takes people’s views very seriously,” he said.
Had the committee not revised the Bill, the measure would have compelled print and broadcast media to submit certain stories to the Film and Publication Board (FPB) before publication — something to which the media had strongly objected, as it would have amounted to pre-publication censorship.
The Bill, aimed primarily at cracking down on child pornography, provides that any content that is sexual in nature, or that can be deemed incitement to war or defined as hate speech, will have to be passed by the board prior to publication.
Chauke said under no circumstances would an African National Congress-led government have passed a law that undermined press freedom. However, he said the committee was happy about the fact that the Bill managed to generate much interest from the media.
”After our engagement with the media, they now understand the need … to beef up their self-regulation,” he said.
The Bill will now be forwarded to the National Council of Provinces.
Minister in the Presidency Essop Pahad said earlier this month the ”great concern” raised by print and broadcasting media over the Bill during public hearings at Parliament would be taken seriously. ”There will be no effort to curb media freedom,” he said, speaking at the end of debate in the National Assembly on his department’s budget vote.
”We don’t want to legislate and see it going to court,” Chauke told the Mail & Guardian after two days of hearings on the Bill. ”We are going to speak to the state law advisers; we think we can come to an amicable solution.”
Those remarks were in sharp contrast to his repeated insistence from the chair that the media do not demonstrate enough concern about the perils of child pornography, and should face tighter regulation.
The committee heard representations from editors, newspaper owners, broadcasters and cellphone operators on the Bill.