The African National Congress should act responsibly and fairly by providing evidence to back up its arguments for a media appeals tribunal, Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) said on Monday. "The [ANC discussion] document unambiguously accuses the media of irresponsible and unfair reporting... however it could be accused of doing the very thing that it condemns [by] making unsubstantiated accusations," MMA director William Bird said in a statement.
Bird said that three specific statements should be backed up. Firstly, the ANC needed to prove how parliamentary appointments to the tribunal would be fair, considering that Parliament was dominated by the ruling party. Secondly, the party needed to prove the Press Ombudsman was biased in his rulings. Lastly, statistics needed to be provided to show how many citizens had complaints regarding media appeal decisions.
The ANC document had said that South Africa was well aware of unregulated power and unbridled capitalism by a select few media houses. Bird agreed there should be greater public ownership of the press code but not at the expense of over-regulation of print media. The MMA was setting up a monitoring project to get concrete evidence on media performance as well as strengths and failures.
The ANC was to meet media on Tuesday to discuss, amongst others, the tribunal, which if introduced would adjudicate complaints from citizens about media publications.
Source: IoL
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