Say what you like about the press, its manifold weaknesses and blind spots, one thing is clear: the current attack on media freedom by the African National Congress and the South African Communist Party is consistent with the core values of neither party, let alone the Constitution.
Instead, it is driven by personal grievance and a growing belief that the ANC’s internal divisions and growing “subculture” (to use Tony Yengeni’s word) of corruption and indiscipline are spilling over into the media sphere.
Advocates of a statutory Media Appeals Tribunal, and of the secrecy law being pushed through Parliament, are almost all powerful, comfortably off and personally aggrieved at allegedly unfair treatment by the press.
Neither the ANC, in its muddled discussion document Media Transformation, Ownership and Diversity, nor the SACP even tries to articulate how a politically appointed complaints body would advance the interests of democracy or the poor.
Canvass the proposals with senior party figures and they tell a litany of stories of unfair treatment by the media and what they see as inadequate or unforthcoming apologies.
One top official, for example, complains of a report about his “holiday home in the Eastern Cape”, phrasing that makes him sound rich, when in fact the house in question is a rondavel in a village. In hearings on the Promotion of Access to Information Bill, MP Thandile Sunduza expressed outrage over efforts to photograph her car.
ANC spokesperson Jackson Mthembu cites stories about the expensive hotel stays of ministers Siphiwe Nyanda and Blade Nzimande, two men politically poles apart but united by their discomfort over media scrutiny.
Topping this pyramid of hurt is President Jacob Zuma himself, battered by years of negative coverage of corruption charges and sexual incontinence.
Nzimande’s deputy, Jeremy Cronin, is probably the only person arguing for statutory regulation who has no axe to grind. His proposals for a narrow complaints tribunal tries hard to sound democratic, but would end up dressing in a democratic negligée a grotesque and illegal bar on press freedom.
His reasoning gets uncharacteristically tortured in the process:
“We DO need a reliable and independent institutional mechanism to which members of the public, including (but not only) high-profile personalities, can take concerns around grievous misrepresentation and unethical reporting,” he writes.
“So what about the courts? Civil action against libel needs, of course, to be an option, but it is costly, prolonged and often inconclusive. Won’t the independence of a tribunal appointed by and reporting to Parliament run the risk of being compromised by a dominant majority party? It’s possible, but I believe that the example of our Human Rights Commission and latterly of the Public Protector demonstrates a different trajectory.”
For starters, anybody with the power to issue fines and other penalties would have to follow due process, which means legal representation and court-like time frames.
It’s a mystery, too, where Cronin gets the idea that defamation suits are inconclusive. Trials always come to a conclusion, they just aren’t often won by politicians, who tend to sue on flimsy grounds.
Worse, however, is his conclusion that a tribunal appointed by MPs who owe their seats to ANC party bosses may “possibly” be abused, but probably won’t. “Latterly”, he suggests, the Public Protector has been doing a good job. That’s a tacit admission that the previous protector, Lawrence Mushwana, served the ANC rather than his constitutional mandate.
This inconsistency is proof that a statutory tribunal is vulnerable to political abuse. Frankly, I am not prepared to trust my freedom or my constitutional duty to a “trajectory”.
That said, the media are already subject to the scrutiny of Chapter 9 institutions such as the Human Rights Commission (SAHRC), as well as civil courts and criminal law.
If journalists have accepted bribes they should face trial for corruption with those — including governing party officials — who may have paid them. If they have infringed people’s constitutional rights, they can be taken to the SAHRC or to court.
Yes, we must all do better, with the help of the press ombud, in enforcing ethical conduct. But no complaints mechanism with more “teeth” than the current self-regulatory system could be cheaper, quicker or more accessible and still allow for due process.
More important than all of this, however, is the nature of our work, which is by definition available for public scrutiny. Millions of readers can check for inaccuracy, bias and error, and call us to account, as they often do. The same cannot be said for state officials, business people and politicians, or indeed the other self-regulated professions: law, medicine, and accounting.
And what of the poor? A robust media capable of exposing private and public corruption, incompetence and hypocrisy is crucial to ensure that the ANC’s principal project — a better life for all — is realised through the appropriate allocation of resources and the realisation of rights.
A free press is a partner in that project, not an enemy. The big men of our democracy need to put their personal pain in their back pockets and focus on the larger injuries we are all trying to heal.