Let the sunshine in

This week is national Sunshine Week in the US.

It has nothing to do with the weather (though after the past weekend, some ultraviolet rays would be lekker), nor does it have anything to do with the Mordoresque financial climate (except indirectly). It has everything to do with opening the closed doors of secrecy everywhere from government to the media, and letting the sunshine in.

The name, Sunshine Week, was coined by Andrew Alexander, now ombudsman for The Washington Post, four years ago to focus media and public attention on the ongoing war for freedom of access to information, specifically about what the government is doing. In his leader page column yesterday (March 15) first in his sights was his own employer — a principle I strongly endorse. The headline, “Lagging in the Fight for Open Government” was, I suspect, deliberately ambiguous.

This is something that would be almost unheard of in the secret closed-door world of South African media notorious for not washing their laundry in public yet claiming a special status in society as the Fourth Estate of society along with the legislature, judiciary and executive (though that was not Thomas Carlyle’s original meaning in 1841). The South African media, without exception and to its collective shame, holds government to a higher standard than it would hold itself when it comes to openness about the way it conducts itself.

Alexander takes The Post to task for not leading the fight for transparency. He extols websites and “other newspapers” for being assertive in “giving readers access to government data”. Remember, of course, that the relationship between the media and government in Washington DC is quite different from that which obtains in a haphazard fashion in SA — irrespective of whether “government” is in Pretoria or Cape Town at any given moment. This is especially so when it comes to the off-the-record briefings US officials routinely hold for the DC press corps — an inane practice because the secrets disclosed this week are usually public record via a different channel next week.

Furthermore many old-guard papers such as The Post like to pretend newsroom reporting (the facts) should be kept apart from the editorial writing (the opinions — say, “thought leaders”). This silly idea is more honoured in the breach than in the practice and its silliness only grows day by day due to the ever-morphing pseudopodia of the internet and cellphone technologies.

But be that as it may, Alexander argues cogently that the US media, more pointedly the Washington media, are lagging badly in their role as opener of the doors of secrecy behind which governments love to shelter. He intimates too that what is sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander. This concept is anathema to SA media from eNews Channel through Primemedia and the SABC to News24, the Independent Group and even the Mail&Guardian. Rather than openness, transparency and candour, they would insist that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. The victims are you, integrity and the truth.

Though it is arguably a pipe dream, I believe the media should hold themselves pristine. Fortunately, the Broadcasting Complaints Commission and the Press Ombudsman are making inroads in ensuring greater accountability on the part of the media for how they conduct their business and manage their affairs. After all, at stake is nothing less than public credibility. Few would argue that it is currently at a nadir towards our media. We have only ourselves and our mulish management paradigms to blame.

Serendipitously (I think), the same day Alexander chastised his bosses, the second most powerful man in America, Federal Reserve chairperson Ben Bernanke, last night told CBS’s 60 Minutes in the first televised interview with a Fed chairperson — ever! — that a lack of openness on the part of the global financial system in favour of a culture of secrecy and obfuscation was at the heart of the lack of public confidence in “the system”.

This is huge. Here was the supreme holder of the national purse saying, “We did it. We kept quiet. We kept secrets. We were not open”. By “we” he implicated the entire financial system.

None of this is news to you. We’ve known for centuries that where big organisations and powerful individuals are allowed to hide their activities and the way they do business behind a veil of secrecy, corruption and abuse invariably follow. Until the bubble bursts and everyone, mostly the innocent, are over their heads in the shit. As the saying goes: when you’re up to your arse in crocodiles it’s hard to remember you went there to drain the waterhole. We, the public, who let the banks, the insurance companies, and the brokers get away with treating us like untermensch are as much to blame as the bankers and financiers themselves.

The exquisitely communicative Bernanke said, “confidence is key” and that the American (and by extension, the world’s) banks and financial structures had crashed. We are all feeling the effects of that crash, even the wealthiest in the world — our own Patrice Motsepe lost R12-billion in personal worth last year. In uncharacteristic fashion for a bean-counter, Bernanke was staggeringly candid in saying just how close America had come to a full-scale depression of the proportions of 1929. The US has already begun the process of regaining stability, he said, but it would need to be “systemic” and require patience and support. He confidently predicted America would begin to emerge from the current financial crisis during the third and fourth quarters of 2009. He also predicted the demise of gigantic transnational groups such as AIG which had grown too big and too important to be allowed to disintegrate the way nature would have them do — hence the repeated bail-outs. Bernanke was unambiguous in saying it would not be allowed to happen again.

I have still not seen any indications that the SA government even understands the depth of the doodoo it is in, let alone take pro-active measures to tackle the problem. Bernanke’s analogy of the precarious nature of global finance was living next to a smoker who falls asleep with a lit cigarette. It is patently in your own interests to watch out that the fire he starts doesn’t spread to your house. No amount of knee-jerk denialism on the part of the SA government or “the system” will help extinguish the flames now that our house is burning too.

And in many senses that is what openness and transparency and accountability are all about. No one believes that Josef Fritzl’s neighbours could not have known about his incestuous double life, but believes rather that they chose to turn a blind eye and keep the sunshine out of his cellar.

Of course, it is asinine to suggest secrets should not be kept in the public or national interest (though centrist and communist regimes would have everything secret). Individual privacy should be sacrosanct too — within obvious limits. In SA the Constitution and the Bill of Rights supposedly enshrine open and accountable governance. They don’t.

The Freedom of Access to Information Act is as toothless and facile as all the other meaningless charters and codes of conduct that clutter hallway walls. The mere existence of some code guarantees naught if the keepers of the code are not held unequivocally accountable, and only openness and transparency can ensure that.

The philosophical principle (though many would argue it is both scientific and theological precept as well) that absence of proof is not proof of absence holds true in the context of Sunshine Week. It is the media’s job, indeed its professional obligation, as the eyes and ears of the public to shine the light on the actions, attitudes, motives and integrity of government and those holding high office. It should shine that light inwardly with equal intensity.

A happy Sunshine Week to us all!