Zuma FBJ briefing: The row should be about secrecy, not race

The Forum of Black Journalists is welcome to choose whoever it likes to attend its meetings. Black, white or blue. It’s a free country.

But no journalists, of whatever hue, should be in the business of organising off-the-record briefings with political leaders.

Wasn’t anything learnt from the infamous 2003 Bulelani Ngcuka briefing that caused enormous damage to the image of journalists as politically independent players beyond manipulation? And that was an occasion not even initiated by the media.

And anyway, why would any journalist act to encourage secret information flows as a first-choice engagement with a source? Especially in regard to a public politician who may be the next South African president.

Shame also goes to Jacob Zuma for speaking to the FBJ on confidential terms of engagement; he could have as easily advised that he had nothing to hide, and that anyone present was free to report his remarks.

Just what was the point of the FBJ tying the hands of the journalists who attended? A bad bid to try to “sex-up” the character of the event?

The fiasco could hardly be a worse start to the revival of the organisation. It has nailed the FBJ colours to an appalling practice of collusion between the media and the powerful.

What makes the occasion even more bizarre was the FBJ presenting it in terms of a meeting open to any (black) journo, and therefore as something more than an FBJ-members-only affair. In other words, the quasi-public status for the meeting made being off the record even more ridiculous.

If the idea of the FBJ was to give real advantage to black journalists, then why not arrange a meeting with Zuma where he could at least be reported by the scribes at this restricted assembly?

I bet top dollar that there was nothing in what the ANC president said that would have been different, had the engagement been on record.

I’m not saying that every off-the-record interaction is against the public interest. But let’s face it, this particular secret briefing was never going to reveal any leaks about the arms deal.

So here you have a wholly unnecessary shroud of secrecy around an event, and overseen by members of the media, nogal.

Wake me up, someone, but doesn’t this signal to the public that you can’t trust South African journalists to open the curtains? That the FBJ at least isn’t interested in the disinfectant of sunshine illuminating the murky shadows of politician-media relations?

The absurdity of the occasion is matched only by the arrogance of white journalists who tried unsuccessfully to gatecrash it. Hearing these whities whinge afterwards made them sound like a beleaguered and victimised minority.

Count me out of that status.

On the other hand, the notion — in 2008 — of a South African journalists’ organisation that still wants to signal its racial character suggests that its proponents also see themselves as a defensive minority.

I would have thought that any journalists’ forum in this country would, by default, be predominantly black. This is not the US where minority ethnic and racial journalists have cause to feel marginalised from the media mainstream.

To be a black journalist in South Africa today is to command enormous advantage, not least your multilingualism and wide social access. You can easily tower over your melatonin-deficient colleagues with their more limited life experiences. Conversely, to be a white journalist means rather poor chances of becoming an editor.

What is it, then, with the FBJ that it has to try to bolster itself by cosying up — behind closed doors — with a prominent political leader like Zuma? Why squander its real strengths with a strategy highly unbecoming to journalists?

There are a host of important issues that the FBJ could be raising.

Taking up the cause of off-the-record briefings does it no credit. It only detracts from the mission of the profession as a whole.