Sunday Times. 18/1/08 — 01/18/2008
ZUMA ATTACKS S.A. MEDIA
Justice Malala
Media values derived from 'apartheid and commercial interests'

African National Congress president Jacob Zuma's attack on the print media this week reveals a 'hostile state of mind towards the media,' says the SA National Editors' Forum (Sanef). 'The attack on the media contains wild generalisations encompassing the media as a whole,' it said in a statement today. Sanef was responding to Zuma's weekly newsletter, published on his party's ANC Today website (see here) in which he said the media in South Africa was 'politically and ideologically’ out of synch with the society in which it operates. 'There are few, if any, mainstream media outlets that articulate a progressive left perspective,' Zuma said. Sanef said Zuma's letter contained no specific allegations, and therefore did not merit a reply. However, the generalised complaint that the media was politically and ideologically out of synch with the society in which it exists could be responded to 'by suggesting that the ANC president and the ANC carefully read the many readers’ letters columns in the newspapers, which will tell them what the people think'.

Welcome for non-propagandist information
The Forum also said it welcomed Zuma's stated intention to widen the channel of communication between the ANC and SA citizens. Zuma said in his letter that last month's ANC national conference had called for the movement to develop its own media platforms. 'This needs to take place alongside the effort to transform the South African media environment so that it becomes more representative of the diversity of views and interests in society, more accessible to the majority of the people, and less beholden to commercial interests,' he said. Sanef said it would welcome any new print media enterprise that would 'increase the flow of non-propagandist information from the party and especially the government'. The forum also said it would take Zuma's non-mention of an ANC proposal to investigate the setting up of a media tribunal as a sign the proposal had been dropped. 'That is to be welcomed because such a tribunal would conflict with constitutional media freedom.'

Media functions as an 'opposition party'
In his newsletter, Zuma said the overall orientation of South African media was 'politically conservative'. He said the media was not simply the product of disinterested and detached observers. 'It is instead a product of the various political, social, economic and cultural forces that exist within a society. It is a battle of ideas, and, as such, the media is part of the battle for power. Those with power, particularly economic power, are keen that the media serves to reinforce their privileged position, while those who seek a more equitable distribution of resources campaign for a media that serves the cause of a more equitable society.' He said at times, the media functioned as if it were an 'opposition party'. He added: 'In part, this can be explained by the structure, culture and values of the media inherited from apartheid, and by the commercial forces that drive most media institutions.'

[Note by Ever-fasternews: Along with the South African subsidiary of a French-based arms company, Jacob Zuma faces charges of corruption, racketeering, money laundering and fraud derived the ANC government’s arms deal corruption scandal of 1998/99. A major role in exposing this scandal has been played by the South African press, thus Zuma’s antagonism to it. The apartheid regime showed the same hostility to the press in South Africa , which generally had an honourable role in opposition to the racist government. Then it accused 'die Engelse pers' (English-language press) of being ‘liberalist' and pro-communist. Zuma merely re-arranges the vocabulary. Now the values of the print media are 'inherited from apartheid' and from 'commercial forces.' Zuma’s categories against the press come from his time in exile as a member of the Central Committee of the South African Communist Party and his periods of training in the former Soviet Union . He was described as a 'Soviet graduate' who 'understood Russian perfectly' by Dr Vladimir Shubin, the Soviet official responsible for supervising the SACP and the ANC. (Vladimir Shubin, ANC: A View from Moscow, Mayibuye Books, Bellville, South Africa, 1999. p.367) - Ed].