It’s temporarily quiet on the Johncom buy-out front. No doubt, though, there’s movement behind the scenes. And the issues certainly have not gone away.

The biggest one is the political interest in owning the newspaper stable. No one believes that this interest is purely business-driven, despite protestations to the contrary by Koni Media (with some of its shareholders based in government), and Mvelaphanda (with its presidential hopeful Tokyo Sexwale).

These political people aren’t averse to making money in the marketplace, but it’s state power i which they’re mainly interested. That’s a different agenda to those ANC people with a direct business agenda.

The distinction is important because some commentators argue that if you exclude people with ANC links, you exclude all BEE players. Ergo: if you rule out people with political interests, you will not see any economic transformation in South Africa.

“So opposition to Koni buying into Johncom should imply opposition to any BEE formation doing the same,” says Mail & Guardian columnist Fikile-Ntsikelelo Moya. He further asserts that Koni ownership would need to leave editorial independence intact: “If Johncom’s prospective new owners sacrifice the titles’ credibility, they do so at their own peril.”

These arguments are wrong.

First, there is an important difference in the driving force entailed in any given BEE deal where it involves people historically linked to what is now the ruling party — is it a step towards getting, or keeping, a grip on state power, or is it a business investment?

If the raison d’être for BEE media ownership is for people to use these assets to gain or maintain political office, then we have an unwelcome Berlusconi scenario on our hands. Ask the Italians what he did to their democracy.

Second, and distinctively, is the danger that, once the objective of political power is realised (or if the people concerned are already in the seat of power), public resources can always get diverted for non-public purposes.

The risk of holders of public office abusing state resources for private or partisan ends is why there are checks and balances to separate out these realms.

At the very least, democracies require transparency — disclosure of what assets a government member or state-employee controls, so that the incumbents of office are limited in their ability to use their position for special benefit of their vested interests. Additional mechanisms include blind trusts so that politicians are kept at arm’s length from their investments.

So, the issue is not “merely” one about separating media and state — it is also about the general principle of not mixing the world of business, on the one hand, and the world of state power on the other.

It is true that while some business people (like Rupert Murdoch) certainly hope to make money, they are at least equally interested in political influence. But a line can and should be drawn where such people seek — or already occupy — a position that directly commands state resources.

The point: when media ownership is primarily a means to a political end, that does not rest easily with integrity in content.

In Brazil and Malawi, there’s a corporatist system where some private media houses operate as a mouthpiece for a party (or a faction on thereof). Although this can count towards pluralism in the wider mediascape, it is an undesirable situation in terms of media autonomy. Certainly not first prize for South Africa.

Thirdly, it’s sadly not the case that readers decide if political owners have killed the “golden goose” through having messed with a newspaper’s autonomous direction. To use an insect metaphor, a political agenda driving the Sunday Times could be sufficient to remove the paper’s sting without necessarily injuring its ability to make honey. The publication wouldn’t necessarily lose sales if it never ran another critical political exposé.

The Johncom shareholding is not a choice between white ownership versus politician ownership; nor is it even one between white ownership and owners who may be ANC linked, but are nevertheless mainly business persons.

Instead, there are other alternatives. One could be cooperative ownership. Take for instance the South African National Editors’ Forum or the Media Workers Association of South Africa: there’s no intrinsic reason why they should not bid for shares.

Other conflicts of interest could arise in such a scenario — but certainly fewer than the case of politicians seeking stakes in the media.

There are also options of trusts, pension funds and a wide number of historically disadvantaged individuals who could be owners. Trevor Ncube could borrow more cash from the banks that lent him money for the M&G. Maybe even the journalism education institutions could get in on the act.

But one thing is for sure: don’t expect papers owned by political forces to serve the public independently of the interests of such owners.

Author

  • Guy Berger is a media academic/activist. He blogs about teaching journalism and new media. Find his research online and micro-blogging from conferences at http://www.twitter.com/guyberger

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Guy Berger

Guy Berger is a media academic/activist. He blogs about teaching journalism and new media. Find his research online...

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