I have lost count of the number of unwinnable debates I have held in the past few years with friends who are media ideologues. The essence of the discussion has been the same. It is that: “Rapule, we know you; you were a comrade but, unfortunately, you work for the capitalist media and he who pays the piper calls the tune.
“For as long as you are trapped in this arrangement you can never quite be objective; you and your colleagues have to bash the government or the ANC to make it or to impress your bosses. Capital in this country has taken a decision to oppose the government and it uses all the resources — including the media — it owns to achieve that.”
The argument is nonsensical but, unfortunately, it does provide a prism through which many want to explain the negative coverage they generate. It provides a sense of comfort and collective grievance for those who refuse to engage in any constructive discussion other than to point accusing fingers at the white or, alternatively, profit-driven media.
I suppose we journalists (including, by the way, those working for the South African Broadcasting Corporation, which gets 80% of its revenue from advertising) should walk around with our heads hanging in shame for agreeing to work for the profit-driven owners and being mere pawns in an agenda far bigger than we realise.
This is the kind of guilt Sandile Memela would have us carry. His is a call to the conscience of journalists to introspect about whether we want to be in the same boat as the Democratic Alliance (heresy this) or part of sunshine journalism. This debate is not new. It is one with which several newly liberated countries have battled. In Zimbabwe, for example, the government, which for years accused the media of being sponsored by Western imperialists, ended up enacting legislation to enable it to close newspapers with impunity and deport foreign correspondents.
It is to our president’s credit that, as much as he is irritated by the media, Thabo Mbeki has resisted the temptation to legislate, resorting instead to responding in his weekly missive on the ANC website.
But those close to him, such as Minister in the Presidency Essop Pahad, have sought to use the Sunday Times experience to remind the rest of the industry that government is capable of withdrawing advertising from uppity media.
The man most versed in the culture of victimology and a leading candidate for the ANC presidency, Jacob Zuma, has called on the masses not to read newspapers. That’s inspiring for a future president.
Senior black journalists, in particular, are expected to weigh in on this sense of guilt and therefore to “break rank” periodically. Essentially my media ideologue friends argue that they would understand white journalists (who have no political conscience or history) treating this or that politician with disdain, but black people should apply more caution when criticising their own people (“our mothers” in the words of Dali Mpofu).
But let’s look at some scenarios, which have regenerated this debate.
You don’t have to hate Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang to believe that she should resign or be fired. Yet it is true that many of her critics appear to harbour what borders on personal contempt and hatred. But our personal sympathies for her as a liberation fighter and mother should not mean we shouldn’t be robust with her.
And it is black journalists, in particular, who — in various newsrooms in general discourses — have hailed Ronald Suresh Roberts’s ideas as a breath of fresh air. His command of the language and thorough research added to our respect for him as some kind of latter-day “frank talk”. Imagine the disappointment when it became clear he is essentially a one-opinion man, that is: Mbeki is or was right.
It is black journalists who agree with Christine Qunta’s contention that racism remains an experience for black people, but who raise eyebrows when she tries to pass herself off as an authority on journalism, ethics and concepts, such as objectivity and subjectivity.
But black journalists who raise these issues do not do so to show off their black consciousness credentials, or with an eye to a future government job. They push for debates inside newsrooms simply in the interests of fairness to the people they cover and to improve the quality of their products.
Publications stay in business because they attract readers who believe in the credibility of their products, which in turn draws advertisers.
Through sloganeering terms, such as “white supremacist agenda, utter contempt for legitimate African leadership, anti-government agenda, coconut intellectuals”, Memela proves his adeptness at throwing around labels without any attempt at grappling with what goes on in newsrooms. He has created a scarecrow at which he repeatedly throws mud. Sad indeed for a man who spent more than 10 years working for the much-maligned profit-driven media.