Silencing journalists is the first step on the road to the demise of democracy.
A “social contract” is a philosophical concept where individuals surrender certain freedoms and pay taxes to the state.
The state then uses that money in the best interests of those individuals or citizens.
Another expression for citizenry is “the public”.
Therefore, those working for the government – or for sundry state-owned (and taxpayer-funded) enterprises – are civil servants. They serve you.
The current arrogant attitudes in government departments and state-owned enterprises, as enunciated by those in charge and those who speak for them, shows clearly they believe the institutions are owned by them.
Communicating with them is not a matter of transparency, as the social contract implies, but a case of them doing us an enormous favour.
We, in the media – much maligned as we are – are the conduit through which those who work for us (civil servants) communicate with us (their employers).
That is why is it disturbing that, increasingly, these institutions and their communicators are trying to use the courts, or the legal system, to stop us from asking the awkward questions, or writing the stories of theft and incompetence.
In the past few months, a number of these officials have tried to abuse the system of protection orders – set up to aid the victims of gender-based violences – to stop journalists from doing their jobs.
Others have tried to get the courts to gag news outlets.
That is why we share the celebration of ednews.africa – a platform which reports on higher education – that attempts by Unisa to gag it were tossed out by a court last week.
We know how Edwin Naidu, editor-in-chief of ednews.africa, must feel, having had multiple legal threats ourselves from Unisa over the past year because of our reporting.
Silencing journalists is the first step on the road to the demise of democracy.
