The US ambassador, no stranger to a critical press, has joined the growing chorus of international concern over press freedom
President Barack Obama knows how to work the media. He is the presidential candidate who basked in a love fest from what the American right calls the “liberal media” while managing to make the cover of conservative Time magazine half a dozen times in just 11 months.
No sooner had Obama arrived at the White House than the tide turned. In September 2009, following a series of attacks by the right-wing Fox News, he said of the American press: “They can’t get enough of conflict. It’s catnip to the media right now.”
But that doesn’t mean he gave up the media for Lent: Obama continues to use it for his own political purposes — see happy pictures of him and his daughter Sasha swimming in the Gulf of Mexico earlier this week — and constantly backs the principle of press freedom, even when the media are on him like, well, cats on catnip.
So, when his ambassador in South Africa, Donald Gips, spoke at the South African Institute of International Affairs at Wits University on Wednesday, it was no surprise that the media got top billing. And he didn’t shy away from the US determination to make sure that the South African press remains free — and that the ANC and media organisations find a way forward on the issue.
“I will talk to ministers, encouraging dialogue, and meet journalists’ organisations,” Gips said. “This country achieves amazing things when it comes together. And it can fall apart and do damage to itself when it doesn’t.”
Gips has joined the growing chorus of concern in the international media. Every outlet, from Al Jazeera to the BBC and the Financial Times, and even the mainstream American TV network, ABC, have reported on looming press restrictions in the country, some with chilling headlines such as “The Dark Ages return to South Africa”.
In separate statements this week, Pick n Pay chairperson Gareth Ackerman and Business Leadership South Africa chairperson Bobby Godsell expressed concern about how talk of a tribunal and the Protection of Information Bill could damage brand South Africa in global markets.
The parliamentary committee of the General Council of the Bar of South Africa on Tuesday added its voice. In a memorandum the committee noted that “whilst containing certain useful provisions”, the information Bill raises significant concerns.
Most notably, it wrote, it “contains a number of unconstitutional elements and it is generally in conflict with the foundational values of the Constitution”.
And that’s exactly what the Americans are punting. “We hope that the Constitution will serve as a guiding light in this debate as the parties walk forward, together, for the public good,” Gips said.