NELSPRUIT – “I have often said the media are a mirror through which we can see ourselves as others perceive us, warts, blemishes and all,” the late former president, Mr Nelson Mandela said 20 years ago. He was speaking at the Independent Press Institute (IPI) World Congress in Cape Town ahead of South Africa’s first democratic elections.
On May 3, days before South Africans go to the polls on Wednesday, we also celebrate World Press Freedom Day. It was declared such by the United Nations to mark the anniversary of the Declaration of Windhoek, which saw African newspaper journalists make a statement of free-press principles in 1991. While South Africa’s press is free, this was not the case during apartheid. Twenty years later, the country has been ranked in 42nd place by the Press Freedom Index 2014 of Reporters Without Borders.
This is up 11 positions from the previous year when it had dropped 10 spots to 52nd. The report noted that this was largely due to the president, Mr Jacob Zuma not signing the Protection of State Information Bill into law, of which the imminence largely attributed to the slip of the previous year. The Bill was approved by the national assembly in November.
Mr Raymond Louw, chairman of the South African Chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa, noted that this
boded ill for the country’s media. He was speaking during the IPI World Congress 2014 in Cape Town about two weeks ago.
“As the 20-year review period comes to an end with this recent chronicle of alarming managerial approaches to coverage, the optimism generated by the arrival of democracy in 1994 has become clouded, if not tinged with pessimism for the future of press freedom in South Africa,” Louw said.
He added that the embarrassment caused by a free press exposing corruption and misdeeds in politicians and government officials, had given rise to hostility against the media. Nor were they happy with the publicising of state violence against its citizens in quelling violent service-delivery protests or strikes.
Louw noted that allegations of improper state political influence had been made at the SABC and that the firing of the editor of the Cape Times, Ms Alide Dasnois had caused further disquiet. Dasnois was allegedly given the axe by Dr Iqbal Survé, chairman of Sekunjalo Holdings, the new owner of the independent group, over publishing criticism by the Public Protector of one of Sekunjalo’s companies.
More recently, this week, eNCA made a complaint to the head of the presidential protection unit after a bodyguard of Zuma apparently erased photographs from a reporter’s phone. Mr Nickolaus Bauer allegedly took photos of a Gauteng traffic- police vehicle transporting ANC T-shirts to an election rally in Ekhurhuleni last Friday.
Yet, the Press Freedom Index also noted that other democratic countries which prided themselves on respecting the rule of law, had not set a good example this past year. “Freedom of information is too often sacrificed to an overly broad and abusive interpretation of national security needs, marking a disturbing retreat from democratic practices. Investigative journalism often suffers as a result,” the report said.
Elsewhere in Africa, Kenya, down 18 spots to 90th, introduced “dangerous parliamentary initiatives like a law adopted at the end of 2013 creating a special court to judge audiovisual content”.
Zambia (93) was “dragged down by measures to censor and block news websites”. In Guinea (102) journalists were attacked and injured during elections marked by protests. The report noted that rulers who had been in power for many years and feared change, became tougher with the media. This resulted in several closures in Cameroon (131) and
abusive prosecutions in Chad (139).
