Floyd's right about partisan journalism

My intuitive connection to friends, rivals, enemies and colleagues in the media tells me that many of the powerful ones will curse me after they have read this piece.

After all, this is not intended to protect them against the onslaught by ANC Youth League’s Julius Malema and Floyd Shivambu.

As I understand after many years in the news business, the good and powerful ones should have made speeches for thanking the latter for raising the issue of corruption in the media.

They should have thanked Shivambu for saying that journalists do slant news in a particular direction or pursue specific political agendas in their business.

Well, Malema and Shivambu may not exactly know or understand the intricacies of the how the media works, but true journalists will tell you that when they reflexively deny their bias they know that it exists.

Yes, you can ask Dr Thami Mazwai at the University of Johannesburg. He will tell you that journalism is not a science and thus there is no objectivity and can easily be used for political agendas.

They should have thanked Shivambu who, in his naivety, has made a somewhat correct observation that some journalists are just like politicians and are in the game for money and getting richer or famous.

I don’t know about the merits or demerits of the names that he presented in his “dossier” but the fact that he lacked the evidence does not mean that all journalists and editors are angels.

I would have thanked the media myself if it had agreed to use the same standards of publishing without verifying information as it often does when it gets “brown envelope” information on politicians.

But they could not agree to do that not because they don’t operate like a “mob” that suffers from a “herd mentality”. However, they would be reluctant to subject one or some of their own to unbalanced, one-dimensional reporting.

My own instincts also tell me that Malema or Shivambu — am not sure which — will not applaud me for going public to say that they may be on to something about some journalists who are not, necessarily, truthful in the pursuit of news.

After all, since when have journalists working for poor pay not been keen to make some money for themselves on the side if they can. Also, they tend to hang around a lot with people who can give them free drinks, food and accommodation.

But we should applaud Shivambu for doing something that challenges the media to be more introspective, examine its professional integrity and remind itself that it is not purely staffed by angels.

There are fewer and fewer people out there who believe and trust the media or its journalists to be truthful or objective.

There are plenty of names that one can give but we are not going into murky waters, now.

Based on what I have witnessed and experienced over the years, journalists in this country have always had a political agenda, if you will.

Okay, that may be too harsh. Maybe in a cheap attempt to provide evidence, allow me to stereotype some institutions and how they operated under apartheid, especially in the 1980s. Yes, they were pursuing a political agenda and were proud of it.

The Sowetan newsroom was, largely, populated by journalists and editors who were aligned to Black Consciousness and the Pan Africanist Congress.

Of course, this influenced how they filtered the news.

You would find that City Press and New Nation, for instance, were staffed by people who were sympathetic to the United Democratic Front which was understood to be the front of the then banned African National Congress.

Papers like The Star, The Citizen and Sunday Times were known to be infiltrated by journalists and editors who were under-cover spies for the apartheid regime.

And, of course, the Weekly Mail was full of self-styled revolutionaries, if there was such a thing in journalism.

That was way back then, you know. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

But those who are not willing to learn from history are condemned to repeat its mistakes.

Of course, this is cheap maligning, stereotyping and generalising about the media, if you will.

But let me say this was a very difficult piece to write. Not because I do not know what I am talking about. The evidence is there.

What made this piece very difficult to write is that I know what I am talking about: journalists think they have power and thus tend to, inevitably, use it to pursue a political agenda.

It is far too common to find media practitioners who belong to cartels and factions who make it not easy for them to be objective in their coverage of developments and trends in the country.

I would say let us give what Shivambu has to say the benefit of the doubt.

He may have gone about it the wrong way but he sure was onto something that the media needs to look at.

An unexamined life is not worth living. And the media is not exempt.

It is time we asked the media to explain: what exactly is its political agenda in South Africa.