Elections turn the heat on journalists and the media. That’s an apt statement by the South African National Editors Forum (Sanef), which this week released safety guidelines for reporters covering the poll.
The guidelines affirm: ”The reporter must be able to operate without harassment, fear or intimidation. It is undemocratic, unconstitutional and a criminal act to harass or intimidate a reporter in any way.”
Sanef recommends that any reporter who experiences threats or worse should report the matter to their editors and to the IEC — as well as publish the fact that the election is being compromised.
The editors’ forum also draws attention to the IEC code of conduct, which specifies that parties and candidates at the risk of sanctions:
- Must respect the role of the media before, during and after an election;
- May not prevent access by members of the media to public political meetings, marches, demonstrations and rallies; and
- Must take all reasonable steps to ensure that journalists are not subjected to harassment, intimidation, hazard, threat or physical assault by any of their representatives or supporters.
It’s excellent for society that journalists’ safety is addressed by editors and enshrined by a statutory body. After all, who can make an informed choice at the polls if the media are being bullied?
But outside of election time, thuggish pressure on the press is also an issue, even though it gets less attention.
Take the recent case of a small-town community newspaper which published a brief about a man in court on a drugs rap. The result was two burly gangsters visiting the newsroom and a gibbering wreck of a journalist left in their wake.
Even the editor in this particular case, a seasoned professional, was terrorised by the threats against her and the reporter’s children. Notwithstanding video and audio recordings of the visit, the police said they couldn’t guarantee safety. The paper dropped the story.
In another case at the same publication, an investigation into misdoings at a car dealership elicited a series of abusive and threatening SMSes. That particular story went ahead, but the same cannot be said with another story at a different community paper.
Staff in this incident packed up their probe into a house being used as a criminal den, after they too had an unwelcome visit to the newsroom.
These incidents, hitherto unpublicised, highlight a tyranny of criminal arrogance at local community level.
And bowing to such bully boys will lead to more and more public-interest information being forced off the agenda.
Conversely, some stories could even be forced on to the agenda. Indeed, the man in the court appearance story had been posing as a philanthropist. It’s not a long way for characters like him to move from suppressing ”negative” news to ordering the publication of whitewash.
To fight off these pressures, editors and media managers need to be prepared to pay for protection for journalists who choose to proceed with the story. They should demand meetings with gangsters to tell them to back off.
Most importantly, although it takes bravery, they also need to publicise the intimidation.
These steps would send the message that the criminals are not dealing with a single journalist or even one paper, but with powerful companies and indeed the media industry at large.
Thugs need to know that any harm coming to a reporter or editor will lead to national and international pressure for them to be brought to book. The loud and clear message must be that they mess with press people at their peril.
This glare of publicity is often an adequate match to the threats of violence. It is a case of criminal power realising that it is up against another kind of power, and calculating that it would be prudent to withdraw.
At least in elections, political intimidation of journalists usually comes into the public eye, because politicians by definition are on parade and sensitive to being portrayed as spoilers.
Publishing pressures on the media during the elections is significant for an election that’s free and fair. It can also help create a broader climate that will make criminals less confident about playing censor.
In all cases, a press that’s insulated from intimidation is the hallmark of a society where force takes second place to freedom.