The media boycott, with my money
The threat from Essop Pahad, the “minister in the presidency” of South Africa, to withdraw advertising from the Sunday Times over the paper’s coverage of the theft conviction, alleged drunken misbehaviour, and abuse of power by Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, the health minister, is “dangerous, dangerous, dangerous”.
So says Anton Harber, the go-to man at Wits University for all matters journalism, in a column that sets out clearly why such a threat — which appears not to be empty rhetoric — would constitute “bad governance, an abuse of public trust and perhaps even corruption”.
They should be slapped down as fast as anyone else actively promoting the abuse of the state coffers in pursuit of their political agendas.
Other publishers and media owners might be tempted to rub their hands with glee at the prospect of this approximately R150-million being dispersed among the Time’s rival publications. If they do, they will be displaying an extraordinary shortsightedness.
To allow the government to use their expenditure to punish those they disapproved of and reward those they like would be to had them a powerful weapon to use against their critics. This month it may be the Sunday Times, but if it proves effective then you can be sure that it will be used against others. It means that publishers and broadcasters will have to think twice every time you do something which might find disfavour with the presidency, such as questioning the use of beetroot rather than antiretrovirals, or pointing to the poor conditions in your local hospital’s maternity wards.
It would be a matter of time before such a weapon was used against those who did no more than give favourable coverage to the wrong faction of the ruling party.
Well said. The threats to media freedom are mounting. President Thabo Mbeki regularly uses his bully pulpit to castigate what he believes to be irresponsible, inaccurate or unpatriotic reporting, usually in response to criticism of the policies of the ruling party, or the actions of the executive. Like anyone else, he’s entitled to his opinions, but a president should use his status and power judiciously. When a head of government publicly denunciates the very institutions that exist to protect the people from their government, this has a chilling effect on freedom of speech.
When that same government threatens to use the prodigious power of public money against the media, this too has a chilling effect on press freedom. Not to mention that it’s your and my money, taken from us by legal force with the promise to use it for the benefit, not to the detriment, of the people.
Thomas Jefferson put it this way: “I think it as honorable to the government neither to know nor notice its sycophants or censors, as it would be undignified and criminal to pamper the former and persecute the latter.”
That’s exactly what the ANC government is doing.
But they’re lying, the politicians might (and do) say. Again, Jefferson, who himself suffered greatly, both personally and as president, from the very press whose freedom he defended, responds: “The man who fears no truths has nothing to fear from lies.”
A free press can be good or bad, but without freedom it can only be bad.
