Editors pursue profits, not truth

Editorial leadership and management in the print media have, largely, become corporatised.

It is not a new development.

Most editors, senior journalists and commentators put on suits, white or colourful shirts and ties when they go to work.

Much as there is absolutely nothing wrong with their dress sense or style, it signifies and confirms that media leaders and managers are deeply committed to being part of corporate culture. And that is a problem.

Before the advent of freedom and democracy in 1994, editors and senior journalists would rarely be seen in suits and ties except when they were going to meet with real management at head office who they regarded as “the enemy”.

The line between editorial independence and the business or corporate side of the news business was clear. In fact, there was a wall of fire that separated the news section from the business division.

As a result, editors and journalists were free souls who owed no allegiance to money-mongers who only sought profits. They took no sides on issues.

They knew who they were and what their mission in life and society was: to deliver the news and commentary with no fear or favour to anyone, especially those who paid their salaries.

But over the last 20 years or so, things have radically changed in the role and responsibility of editors and journalists in the newsroom. Today, editors and senior journalists are men and women who use their clothes to make a statement about their personal success and individual achievements.

They are corporate professionals who use their positions and status to draw attention to their self-importance, their VIP status and how they have “made it” in society.

It may sound like one is blowing things out of proportion by focusing on one little detail of the complex nature and character of what makes the men and women who work in the media.

But this is to show the corporatisation of the media.

This phenomenon reveals how editors and journalists have compromised their integrity, freedom, self-determination and independence by allowing themselves to be turned into corporate animals whose business is now to be preoccupied with profits rather than pursuit of the truth.

Editors and journalists have allowed the wall of fire that separated them from their profit-seeking controllers to collapse simply because they, too, have become part of the capitalist system that promotes self-interest, greed and selfishness.

And yet the business of editors and journalists should make them a distinctive breed that expresses genuine national aspirations and articulates the vision that should lead a nation or people to a better quality of life in a working democracy.

But there is relative lack of authenticity and relative absence of principle when the editors and senior journalists talk about the threat of withdrawal of advertising by government, for instance.

It is not the business of editors and senior journalists to make sure that their newspapers make money. That is the business of advertising sales executives and management.

What stands out most strikingly about this development is how it reveals that the business of newspapers is no longer to give insightful commentary and news that is informative.

Instead, newspapers now exist to make huge profits for shareholders. This is what we mean by the corporatisation of the media.

Thus when one looks and sees editors and senior journalists, they project a very corporate image that makes it difficult to distinguish them from managers, accountants and other bean counters who have turned the business of news upside down for profits.

One even gets the impression that their own survival and success rests on how soon they’re able to answer the beck and call of those who desire to use newspapers to make money for themselves.

At the risk of generalising, most present day editors and managers appear too eager to please their bosses, too eager to make profits, too self-seeking to prioritise the general good.

And when the news business is more business than news, then there’s no reason to have faith and trust in the media. This development is the biggest threat to so-called freedom of the media and expression.

It makes editors no different from business people and politicians who are only looking for Number 1.

The media cannot afford to compromise its integrity, independence and freedom. This makes it part of the problem. The greatest threat to press freedom in South Africa is not the government or withdrawal of advertising but the editors and journalists themselves.

It’s time they told us whose side they’re on: money or truth?

You cannot serve two masters at the same time.