Media freedom debacles aside, the press is failing us
- Julie Reid
- Feb 5
- 1 min read
South Africa is fighting for media freedom, but I’m not always sure why – since even when journalists have freedom in theory, they seem to spend an awful lot of time parroting the ‘official’ standpoints on the country’s most burning issues. Why?
Let me be clear. There is a small collection of really courageous journalists and editors in this country who consistently and tenaciously produce outstanding work in their dogged pursuit of the truths that matter, and ferociously battle to keep the reading public informed, sometimes at great personal cost. This column is not about them.
This column is about the flip side: the much larger number of journalists and publications who are rubbish.
Since mid-2010, anyone interested in media freedom and freedom of expression has been swept up in a state of hysterics and anxiety. Media people, civil society and activists, and media academics have been on a knife-edge of nervousness because of the twin threats to press freedom posed by the Protection of State Information Bill and the ANC’s proposed Media Appeals Tribunal.
The thorough reviews of the press regulatory system, by the Press Council and the Press Freedom Commission, offered two rare opportunities to decipher the factors prevailing in the press sector which result in poor quality journalism. This did not happen. But neither the Press Council nor the Press Freedom Commission can necessarily be blamed for that.