As individuals, South Africa’s journalists express themselves in media platforms around the clock. But for the past five years, they’ve lacked a collective professional voice.
This may be about to change, with the launch this coming weekend of the Professional Journalists’ Association (PJA).
The South African Union of Journalists (SAUJ) closed down five years ago. The Media Workers Association of South Africa (MWASA) is very much broader than journalists, while also limited to concerns like labour disputes. Special interest groups like the Forum of Black Journalists rise and fall.
In the past, the journalists’ unions strutted on the national stage, for example in being parties to setting up the Press Ombudsman office in 1996, and in giving testimony to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1997.
The PJA plans to revive this kind of public sphere presence.
The driving force behind the organisation is Michael Schmidt, a former Sunday Times journalist. His motivation, as expressed in one article, is concern that “all the big debates about journalism” have been conducted by “everyone except working journalists”.
Schmidt himself sees the PJA as impacting on how government and companies relate to media.
To this end, the constitution envisages the body as being a club for debate, a vehicle for lobbying and a facilitator of training.
As explained on the Association’s Facebook page by member Sue Blaine, the PJA does not primarily aim to “fight for journalists’ rights, but for journalism’s rights”.
It’s an ambitious vision for a constituency that spans individuals with demanding beats, bosses and workload burdens. Not to mention differences between media houses and platforms, languages, race, gender and geography.
Among the challenges the PJA will face are:
- Sourcing regular funds to pay for a secretariat and administration.
- Time and commitment from members in over-stretched newsrooms.
- Building “social capital” in the ranks by creating bonds of over-arching identity, trust and reciprocity.
The South African National Editors Forum (SANEF) has overcome similar obstacles through securing grants from industry owners, and by drawing in academics and trainers who contribute substantial time to the cause.
Through committed leadership over the years, SANEF has built a community of mutually-supportive editors. This has been achieved while operating as a forum without direct authority over its members.
SANEF commands no troops: it operates only through the voluntary participation and accord. The PJA will also have to deal with a similar challenge.
Another SANEF experience that is salutary for PJA is that most of its activities have been limited to reactive mobilisation, like when there’s a threat to press freedom.
From the PJA viewpoint, there is certainly a lot to react to. Whether these are threats from politicians or officials, employers short-changing journalism, or unethical journalism.
But while some journalists will find satisfaction in responding to such problems as they emerge, the involvement of others in the profession will require delivery of different benefits.
Thus, success for PJA will depend on how effectively it can run a programme of action to mobilise the broader ranks of journalists – proactively, rather than only reactively.
Here’s a suggestion. May 3 is World Media Freedom Day. That’s a great date to launch a public consultative process to develop a PJA code of conduct to which members can subscribe.
A starting point could be debating the clause in the PJA constitution promoting ethical, balanced and “responsible” journalism. “Responsible” to whom?
Every journalist should be interested in public engagement on how to interpret the R word. Through actions like this, PJA can even go beyond SANEF and make both journalists and public a “part of the story”.
This column is made possible by support from fesmedia Africa, the Media Project of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in Africa, www.fesmedia.org. The views expressed in it are those of the author.
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