Media independence: From whom?

It can be frustrating when, after speaking to a journalist for 20 minutes, they only use one line of your comments.

This happened to me last week after I was interviewed by the Sunday Times about the proposed takeover of Johncom, publisher of the Sunday Times, by a group involving senior government officials.

I don’t blame the reporter or the newspaper because I understand how these things work, but so often, in situations such as these, one’s comments can be taken out of context.

There are a few issues involved in the Johncom story:

One is the fact that prominent black people, who have already been empowered, are going to be empowered once again. Surely, it is now time to look beyond the usual suspects and start making sure that more and more people are becoming empowered, apart from the small click that seems to be benefiting from all BEE deals at the moment.

Two is the fact that it is not illegal for public servants, whether they be politicians or government officials, to engage in business (maybe it should be, but that is another issue). All they have to do is declare their business interests to their employer, but they don’t have to do it before the deal is done.

It was against this background that I questioned whether the president would have been consulted or would have known about the proposed Koni Media Holdings takeover of Johncom.

I also pointed out that there are so many BEE groups, almost all of them involving senior government officials or senior ANC members, who are all fighting each other for lucrative stakes in companies.

Three is the fact that the Sunday Times is probably the most influential newspaper in South Africa and anyone who wants to be influential in society would consider buying into the Sunday Times. No matter how many guarantees they give about media freedom and editorial independence, one can almost be certain that there will be attempts at interference. It is only human nature.

If it is indeed true that Koni Media was acting under instructions from above then, coupled with the government’s attempts to control the SABC, this spelled danger to our society and was scary, I said, and part of this statement was the only comment that appeared in the Sunday Times, attributed to me.

Fourth is the fact that Koni Media already owns an advertising agency and this is where there could be a potential conflict of interests. I don’t know of any other media group that has newspapers and advertising agencies in the same stable.

Apart from the potential for government interference in the media, I am concerned about how the “Chinese wall” between advertising and editorial seems to have disappeared.

Commercial interests have much more say in the media nowadays and nobody seems to be too worried about that.

In the old days, no decent radio announcer would have had read out ads almost as part of normal conversation, but it seems everybody is doing it nowadays.

Advertising features in newspapers are now called “commercial features” or even “special features”. Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish news from advertising because they even use the same fonts.

This commercialisation of the media is particularly bad in the sports pages where everyone refers to *Sponsor’s Name* Newlands when nobody calls it by that name outside the media. We also have teams known as *Sponsor’s Name* Cheetahs or *Sponsor’s Name* Lions.

These *Sponsor’s Names* are used glibly by the media. What ever happened to the good old Cheetahs or Lions?

Again, this is something that would never have happened in the past.

I am all for editorial independence, but we need to know from what we want independence. It is not enough to shout about the need for independence from government interference when we appear to remain entirely comfortable with commercial interference.

Just a thought.