There are also some puzzling aspects.
Some of the practical ideas for strengthening the system build well on the earlier suggestions of the Press Council’s committee (on which I served). For example, it has retained, but refined, suggested changes, including the creation of a public advocate to assist complainants. Its “space fines” provide appropriate sanctions. The limited use of monetary fines is tough, but defensible.
Much work will need to be done on detail and to consider all the ramifications, but scrapping the waiver, widening the room for third-party complaints, stronger protection for children and other ideas are welcome.
There are also difficulties. The basic decision to drop self-regulation is one – and the report provides no real argument for such a far-reaching decision.
We should be clear: this is a big step away from international best practice. The report quotes a 2007 survey by the New Zealand Press Council that said 86% of press councils were self-regulatory – though it got the figure slightly wrong.
<strong>Self-regulation</strong>
That survey also said 34% of councils had public representation that was “at least equal” to the media’s, which would cover the current South African arrangement of equal media and public representation.
University of South Africa academic Dr Julie Reid has shown that self-regulation is overwhelmingly dominant in countries that score well on the media freedom indices of Reporters without Borders and Freedom House.
The report simply asserts that “independent co-regulation” satisfies the requirements of an “effective and independent system”. We are not shown the commission’s engagement with arguments for self-regulation.
The fundamental question is: Why should journalism, like other fields, not have its own mechanisms to look after standards – not in place of legal and other limits but in addition to them? The answer is that the current system is regarded as having failed to keep our journalists on the straight and narrow. The report does not address this directly and is in parts complimentary about the work of the press ombudsman. Yet, between the lines, one gets the sense that the commission was powerfully motivated by this line of thought.
<strong>More muscle</strong>
It would have been good to see the evidence that informed this conclusion and where it drew the line between perceptions and reality.
The commission clearly believes more muscle is the best way to improve standards, a solution that has the main advantage of being in accord with the political call for stronger action. Without better insight into the commission’s thinking, one is left with the impression that key decisions were driven by a need to alleviate political pressures. It is not at all clear that this is a good reason.
Practically, this means shifting the balance in the council from its six-six balance now to a majority of public members. Greater public participation is a good thing, but it is a pity the commission did not go beyond a numbers game. It might have thought of ways to improve the depth and quality of public participation and make the council’s proceedings much more publicly accessible.
In the suggested code there are good ideas, but also a moralistic tone. Underreporting the drugs problem is an offence and there is an absolute ban on visuals of explicit sex. The latter would seem to rule out several famous Zapiro cartoons and prevent magazines from illustrating sexual advice articles in any but the most cautious terms.
Other ideas are simply unworkable. People criticised in opinion pieces must, for example, be given a simultaneous right of reply. A column criticising Sanral for e-tolls, say, would have to have a response. But public debate involves a to and fro over time, not in a single edition.
<strong>A greater responsibility</strong>
Finding the right balance between media freedom and accountability is a complex task. Journalists work with information – a public good of a special kind.
It is essential to democracy, which suggests the need both for greater responsibility and greater freedom. Unlike doctors and lawyers, journalists do not monopolise our field: anybody can write and pass on information. With the growth of online and social media, everybody can be a journalist and publisher.
Just as the report was published, an Australian government commission released a report grappling with these issues. It re-commends a single regime for all media, regardless of platform, and an “industry-led” body to oversee journalistic standards. It argues that larger enterprises have greater public responsibilities, creating a neat distinction that could help to differentiate professional journalists from private bloggers.
The media face some very large issues: technological changes, consequent shifts in the nature of the business, the need for transformation, the political climate and others. It would have been useful to get a sense of the commission’s ideas about how these developments affect the immediate issues of regulation and standards. At one point, it asks what lies behind the problem of poor standards and it is a pity the report does not explore some of the contextual factors that play a role.
The commission’s report provides some excellent suggestions, but there are concerns on the level of some detail as well as the basic approach and reasoning. Unfortunately, this cannot be the final word on a “gold standard” of media regulation – much more discussion will have to happen before that is in place.
<em>Franz Krüger is the Mail & Guardian’s ombud and a member of the press appeals panel</em>