ANC battles a test for journalism

”Anyone would be better than Thabo Mbeki.” Remember that time — which feels like a lifetime ago because the past decade has been so traumatic.

Journalists in all good faith threw their hearts, minds and pens into this chorus and backed “a man of the people”, “a humble man”, an “unpretentious and simple man”.

Some powerful types proclaimed there would be “blood on the floor” if Jacob Zuma did not become the next president.

As quickly as populist alliances form so do they unravel, according to Ernesto Laclau’s political philosophy theory. True to theory, Zuma no longer has his alliance friends who brought him to power — Zwelinzima Vavi, then in trade union federation Cosatu, Blade Nzimande from the South African Communist Party, and Julius Malema, then heading the ANC Youth League. His fairweather friend Gwede Mantashe flip-flops to the extent that there is now a verb in the local lexicon, “mantashing”.

Then look what happened. I won’t mention what everyone knows, but for Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown’s benefit: the political and corporate corruption with the Guptas, at the nexus with international companies McKinsey and KPMG, among others, is explosive. This has been exposed in the #Guptaleaks — the capture of the state and law enforcement agencies, starting with the disbandment of the Scorpions. The country, Minister Brown, is struggling with a shocking unemployment rate, a hideous current account deficit and junk status ratings.

Meanwhile, politicians all over the world are known to attempt to mislead with disinformation and even bribe journalists to get the nod in the media. If journalists accept money from politicians they are equally complicit in corruption.

The South African National Editors Forum (Sanef) held its last council meeting for the year on November  24. Among other issues, ethics and reporting on the run-up to, and at, the ANC elective conference were discussed and a statement was released appealing to journalists to heed the Press Code’s clause on independence and conflicts of interests. This states:

“2.1. The media shall not allow commercial, political, personal or other nonprofessional considerations to influence or slant reporting. Conflicts of interest must be avoided, as well as arrangements or practices that could lead audiences to doubt the media’s independence and professionalism.

“2.2. The media shall not accept a bribe, gift or any other benefit where this is intended or likely to influence coverage.”

The code of ethics is clear and simple. And, let’s be frank, it’s not journalists’ business to be backing anyone for president of the ANC, or the country, or any candidate’s slate. It is their job to speak truth to power and to hold the powerful to account, which they do by exposing corruption, including politicians who are or have been involved with unsavoury dealings.

Take for instance, ANC presidential candidate Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and the tobacco dealers.

It is for journalists to help the public to connect the dots to remind us that she was responsible for the anti-smoking legislation. Hence the irony. Then there was the Sarafina debacle, which no one is mentioning these days.

It is also for journalists to remind the public that another presidential candidate, Cyril Ramaphosa, has the Marikana blot on his landscape, including interesting facts about his buffalo bill.

The judiciary, opposition parties, civil society organisations and journalists are all playing their roles in this democracy but, with the ANC elective conference drawing near, journalists need to be reminded about how easy it is to be led up many different garden paths.

We are living in an age confounded by disinformation, propaganda enabled by digitisation, which is throwing the future of journalism into doubt. This phenomenon exists parallel to the rise in populism and nationalism.

In this age, only investigative journalism will survive; the rest, called “content” by some editors, may in the future be produced by robots who gather algorithms and analytics from your data. The Global Investigative Journalism Network conference, hosted by Wits Journalism this month, confirmed this. The growing monopolisation of Facebook and Google, which have captured 50% of digital revenue globally, has created this situation.

The future for journalism as we know it is bleak; it’s dying. Although investigative journalism will grow, there isn’t a successful business model for it yet. It will probably continue to be funded by crowd-sourcing and philanthropic sources such as the George Soros, Open Society and Bertha foundations, among others. There will be more collaborations, especially cross-border and international ones. This is the future of journalism. Print continues to die, the latest victim being The Times, which will be online only early next year.

Think of journalism in this context and reflect also on journalists backing presidents and slates when we cover the ANC elective conference. So is Ramaphosa the least rotten in a bunch of rotten apples? Maybe, maybe not. I heard one media company is backing the “unity candidate” Zweli Mkhize. Maybe this is misinformation, so I won’t mention the name of the company.

Journalists should leave backing political horses to political analysts on the comment and analysis pages. But, because business models are failing, opinion, comment, analysis and reporting are unfortunately getting mixed up.

In the meantime, journalists need to keep their noses clean. Journalists can’t give equal time to everyone and can’t be completely free of bias and subjectivity, but they can connect the dots, provide context and history, and use their eyes and ears, taking care not to over-connect the dots. It’s a delicate and difficult balance.

Start with the premise that all politicians want something from journalists, stick to the Press Code about conflicts of interests. If you are still in doubt, look at the Constitution, and the rest will follow.

Glenda Daniels is associate professor of media studies at the University of the Witwatersrand. She also chairs the ethics and diversity sub-committee at Sanef. These are her own views