THERE is concern that press freedom is increasingly coming under threat with the South African National Editors Forum (Sanef), in the past few months, issuing one statement after the other condemning attacks on press freedom. Yesterday, African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) president Julius Malema kicked BBC journalist Jonah Fisher out of a press conference in Johannesburg calling him a “bastard”, an “agent” and telling him to take his “white tendencies elsewhere” after Fisher pointed out that Malema lived in Sandton yet he criticised Zimbabwe’s opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, for having offices there.
This came on the heels of Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging secretary-general Andre Visagie walking out on an e.tv talk show on the relationship between farm workers and their bosses after he became unhappy about how the interview was being handled. These incidents on their own would be concerning, but it is not the first incident involving the ANCYL or the only incident involving media being censored in the past few months. Last month, a group of journalists lodged a formal complaint against ANCYL spokesman Floyd Shivambu for allegedly threatening journalists, saying that he had information on them after they questioned the accuracy of a document on another journalist that was leaked to them by Shivambu.
Shivambu’s attack followed a series of stories on Malema’s lifestyle and questions on whether he had directorships in companies that could be constituted as a conflict of interest. The information in Shivambu’s possession on a City Press journalist, who has been particularly critical of Malema, suggests that someone gained access to that journalist’s personal bank account. The indication was that data was being gathered on a number of journalists.
At almost the same time, two Mail & Guardian journalists were detained after taking pictures of President Jacob Zuma’s home in Forest Town, Johannesburg, and 702 Eyewitness News reporter Tshepo Lesole was forced by Zuma’s VIP unit to delete pictures of the president’s motorcade during a visit to Soweto’s Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital. Then, on March 23, eNews journalist Morgan Collins was arrested in Durban while covering a protest by nurses employed by the city council. Collins, who was allegedly standing on a pavement, was given five minutes to leave by metro police and did not.
Anton Harber, head of the Wits University journalism department, says there is a “worrying disrespect” for the media emerging. “The media at the moment are being tough on a number of issues and this is leading to a lot of intolerance from a number of quarters,” he says. “The only way the media can stand up to this is with good solid reporting and to support each other when an individual journalist is targeted. “Ahead of the Olympic Games in China there was a lot of insistence on the media’s freedom to operate independently during the games, and yesterday’s incident involving the ANCYL reflects badly in world media on SA and the Soccer World Cup.”
Sanef Media Freedom chairman Thabo Leshilo, who had described the Shivambu incident as “the most cynical, most sinister attack on press freedom since the end of apartheid”, says throwing a journalist out of a press conference and preventing his organisation from covering an event was censorship. “There is a concerning lack of respect for the media’s role in society,” he says. “The media are necessary for the public good to continually monitor and report on issues. We need to promote the idea of having an open society, where people are free to express themselves, where the media are free to do their jobs.”
Leshilo says despite an undertaking from the police ministry that journalists will not be prevented from doing their jobs, “ the message does not appear to be filtering down to the members who are still harassing journalists,” he says.
Harber says Malema’s comments that the rest of the media could leave yesterday’s conference because the only media house they were worried about was the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) because it “was their own”, did immeasurable damage to SABC’s credibility.
SA is ranked 44th out of 168 countries in the latest index on press freedom.
Source: Business Day
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